And, last but not least, in Romania, a country with 22 million people, there were more MPs than the number of congressmen in the United States, a country with more than 300 million inhabitants. It was not just Basescu’s opponents, but also voices coming from the civil society which accused Basescu that all he did was to contaminate the pre-election debate with an extremely popular theme, thus creating for himself an immoral and undeserved political advantage. Yet the outcome of the presidential election proved that such allegations were completely wrong. But the electorate could tell the idea from its initiator: accordingly, Basescu got only 32% of the votes, but more than three quarters of those who went to the polls cast their vote in favor of reshaping Parliament.

Nevertheless, legislating the single-chamber parliament has been postponed. Coming completely at loggerheads with the electorate, no less than three out of four parliamentary parties appear to be stalling the process, in the hopes they might simply bury the heated topic. On Monday, the standing bureaus of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies decided to postpone the setting up of a Parliamentary Commission for the revision of the Constitution, so that the law on the single-chamber Parliament could be passed. The leaders of the Liberal –Democratic Party (a pro-presidential party, part of the ruling coalition) say that the MPs of the Social Democratic Party and the National Liberal Party (in opposition) create an extremely dangerous precedent by simply disregarding the referendum. Those who came under fire have deflected such shots, and in turn have accused the Liberal Democratic Party of staging an ”image play”.

They said the Constitution as a whole should be changed, and not only the Parliament, or else they should happily assume representation of that quarter of the electorate that voted against the single-chamber Parliament. Furthermore, although part of the governing coalition, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania did not conceal its opposition against the prospective dismantling of the Senate and the number of deputies becoming smaller. Analysts have warned that such obstructions can only deepen the rift between the electorate and those elected, also enhancing the unpopularity of an already unpopular parliamentary caste.