BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romania's ruling Social Democratic Party says an adviser to a regional leader who published a manipulated image of the country's president dressed in Nazi uniform has quit over the matter.

The party's Vrancea county branch said Constantin Guguianu resigned his post and from the party on Monday, days after he posted a fake photo on social media of President Klaus Iohannis wearing a Nazi helmet emblazoned with a swastika.

The party distanced itself from his action in a statement, saying it firmly condemned "this kind of behavior."

The Elie Wiesel National Institute for Holocaust Study also criticized the smear, saying it could encourage similar "gaffes." Guguianu later deleted the post.

In recent months, several senior Social Democrats including two ministers have made jibes about Iohannis, an ethnic German, linking him to the Nazis.