TOL Romania

Reluctant to govern

June 25th, 2007 by andreidumitrescu

Most parties, in most countries where a democratic system is in place, seek to attain power. Depending on the country, its political system, its electoral arrangements being in power can mean wither forming the government as the biggest party in the legislative or to become part of a coalition that has a Parliamentary majority and can pass legislation.

Currently no Romanian party is very interested in governing. Opposition seem to be the most interesting and politically profitable position for all of them. Let’s take them one by one:

- the biggest party in Parliament is PSD, headed by Mircea Geoana, currently has the biggest number of representatives in Parliament. In 2004, after the last elections, it could not form a government because of an alliance of PNL, PD, PC and UDMR;

- PD and PNL, in an alliance called Alianta D.A. (the Justice and Truth Alliance) won the elections of 2004 and were joined by PC, the conservative party, and UDMR, a party representing ethnic Hungarians, to form government. Since 2004 the conflict between the PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu of PNL, the liberals, and President Traian Basescu of PD, the popular democrats, erupted. In 2007 PD was thrown out of government, via a cabinet reshuffle, and then PNL joined PSD, PRM, PC and UDMR in impeaching the President. He was reinstated by popular vote;

We now have the liberals in government, ided by the UDMR, severely restricted in what legislation they can pass by their limited presence in Parliament, around 20%, and under constant threat of a no-confidence vote. It would seem to be a perfect position for the PSD, the social democrats, to drive home their Parliamentary advantage and take the reins of government.

Well, it ain’t so simple as it sounds. The President, Traian Basescu, and his party, PD, are pushing very vocally for early elections as a means to capitalize on their confidence scores which have sky rocketed after the referendum which reinstated the impeached President. To have early elections the current PM needs to be removed, by a no-confidence vote, and then 3 successive candidates for the job of PM must fail to secure the parliamentary backing.

PSD is afraid that the President will pretty much drive the country to early elections by nominating for the position of PM very unpopular figures, which could not secure a Parliamentary backing. And all the parties are afraid of early elections because of their falling poll numbers. As such only the PD is strongly claiming top back any and all no-confidence votes, while PSD is not really itching to propose one.

Romania is currently in a state of limbo, with a weak government, a split opposition and the fear of elections dangling over the heads of all the parties minus the PD. To add to the intensity of the situation we have elections for the European Parliament coming up this fall and an European Commission review in a couple of days…

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Romania. Recent (political) history

June 11th, 2007 by andreidumitrescu

On the 19th of May the citizens of Romania were asked to vote in a referendum. The issue was whether president Traian Basescu, suspended one moth earlier by Parliament, should be removed from office or reinstated. 44,5% of the more than 18 million voters of Romania have cast a ballot in the referendum. 74,48% voted for the President to be reinstated and 24,75% thought that he should be removed from office.

The current government, dubbed Tariceanu II, is made up of the Liberals, PNL, and the ethnic Hungarian party, UDMR. The government has only about 20% clear support in Parliament. It has been voted in with a clear parliamentary majority, acquiring votes from the likes of the Social-Democrats, PSD, the Conservatives, PC, and the right wing Nationalists, PRM. The only parties clearly against the new government are the Democrats, PD, and the Liberal-Democrats, PLD. All the descriptions associated with the parties in the paragraph above should be taken with a grain of salt as ideological positions in Romania have a habit of being both fluid and not clearly defined…

The Tariceanu II government is set to survive a no-confidence vote today. Traian Basescu, the president, has repeatedly called for early elections, and this motion of no-confidence could have been a fist step towards them, yet that seem to only be supported by PD and PLD, with the majority of Parliament withy their minds set on elections in late 2008.

Current polls seem to indicate that PD, the party formerly led by president Basescu, to be the top choice for the citizens . Both PSD, led by Mircea Geoana, former ambassador to Washington, and PNL, led by current PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu, seem to be on a descending trend. On the other hand both the UDMR, representing the Hungarian minority, and the PRM, led by Corneliu Vadim Tudor, hover around 5%, the threshold for entry into Parliament. There are other minor parties, like PLD, PIN or PNTCD that are unlikely to get 5% of the votes. PNG, advertised as a party for a new generation and led by contested business man George “Gigi” Becali, is set to gain representation.

Romania joined the European Union on the 1st of January 2007. Yet the country is still monitored by the Comission on issues ranging from Justice to the Environment. A report is due out shortly on Romania’s progress. European funds are plentiful, yet the country only has the capacity to absorb a fraction of them, making Romania a net contributor to the European budget.

Romania’s commissioner on the Barosso led European Commission is Leonard Orban, Commissioner for Multilingualism.

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