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| A FIRST ON THE ROMANIAN POLITICAL SCENE (17.04.2007) |
| (2007-04-17) |
| Last updated: 2007-04-17 16:32 EET |
The impeachment of President Traian Basescu by Parliament would be a first for post-communist Romania. His predecessors Ion Iliescu and Emil Constantinescu, monotonous characters, completed their mandates. An atypical player president, as he likes to call himself, President Basescu is also planning a new move, which will be another first for Romania. He has announced that if he is impeached, he will not wait for the electorate to validate or refute the Parliament’s vote in a referendum, but he will resign to force early elections.
“An excellent move, although cheap populism”- the daily newspaper COTIDIANUL describes Basescu’s gesture. Lacking charismatic presidential candidates, the political parties are in a dilemma over how to tackle the issue. Certainty is only characteristic of the Democratic Party, led by Basescu until 2004 and of the Liberal Democratic Party, set up by a splinter group from the National Liberal Party, that supports president Basescu. Both parties will obviously vote against the impeachment.
Cleverly and quickly changing partners, from the left wing to the right wing and the other way round, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians has managed to stay in power since 1996, mainly because it has always avoided irreparable splits. Consequently the Union will most likely abstain from severing the ties with the president and his Democrat and Liberal Democrat allies-who are virtual partners in a future ruling coalition.
The leaders of the Social Democratic Party, Greater Romania Party and Conservative Party have reiterated their decision to oust Basescu, but the overall number of the three parties’ votes is insufficient for the president’s impeachment. Consequently, everything depends on the vote of the National Liberal Party, which has the largest number of portfolios in the minority government. Prime Minister Calin Popescu Traiceanu, although an avowed rival of the president, hasn’t so far expressed a firm opinion on the issue. His cronies have announced the Liberal MPs will have the freedom to vote according to their conscience. All in all, analyst Cristian Tudor Popescu, the director of the GANDUL newspaper says:
”I doubt that this week will produce anything good, no matter if the president is impeached or not, steps down or not. I think that political life in Romania has deteriorated, it has become strident, almost kitschy, with the politicians’ attention increasingly diverted from the citizen’s agenda, needs and wishes. Therefore, it would be better for the political class to be shaken up, give up scheming and backstage moves, which have no civic objective.”
Initially favouring the president, public opinion starts to oscillate. The latest poll shows that 40% of the Romanians consider Basescu the main person to blame for the crisis. But, in case of a referendum, 41% would vote for Basescu to stay in office and only 31 % for him to be ousted. And the remaining 16% of undecided voters might change all calculations.
(Bogdan Matei)
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