Jan 29, 2007 (
The Social-Democrats together with the xenophobic nationalist hardliners of ‘Greater Romania’ Party managed to gather the required signatures in the parliament in order to launch procedures aimed to oust the country’s President Traian Basescu.
Back in 2004, Mr. Basescu won the presidential elections by directly accusing the generalized corruption of the Social-Democrat regime. He also exposed the SocDems of controlling the local media by means of massive governmental sponsored advertising.
Since then, Mr. Basescu triggered a resolute fight against corruption (by giving more power to the National Anti-Corruption Department, and by promoting new bills aimed to check more carefully the politicians’ financial interests and assets). Former Social-democrat PM Adrian Nastase and prominent Liberal businessman Dinu Patriciu were indicted during the process.
As for the country’s foreign policy, Basescu chose to get closer to U.S.A and
Last but not least (in December 2006), MR. Basescu formally denounced the former Communist regime as “illegitimate and criminal”, during a special session of the country’s Parliament.
Outspoken, frank, and popular Basescu made lots of enemies among the local oligarchs, bureaucrats, and politicians (friends and foes alike).
Lately, both his opponents and even the Liberal allies openly accused Mr. Basescu of trying to establish an authoritarian regime.
In fact, the SocDems’ impeachment scheme emerged just after a conflict in the media between President Basescu and Liberal PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu – Mr. Basescu aaccused the PM of asking him to influence the justice system in a case against the Liberal businessmen Dinu Patriciu.
According to the Romanian law, the head of State impeachment should follow the steps below: 1/3 of the MPs must sign the impeachment request; the request should be approved by the Supreme Court; then the Parliament’s majority should pass a motion for suspending the President from office; parliamentary hearings should take place within a month and the president of the Senate could call for a referendum asking the registered voters to dismiss the President.
As taking into account his popularity, it is highly improbable that President Basescu would be sacked by means of a referendum. Then, the whole ‘impeachment scheme’ is likely to hide a political action that is aiming another target: namely the country’s elections for the European Parliament to take place in May, this year.
According to the latest opinion poll, Mr. Basescu’s political supporters (i.e. the Democrats, the Liberal-Democrats, the ‘New generation’ party, and the Ethnic Hungarians Union) would win more than 52 percent of the votes, while the Social-Democrats are down at 19.8% (a historic low) and the National Liberals hold 17.2% only.
That is why, maybe, the Social-Democrats (in opposition) and the National Liberals (in the ruling coalition) might strike a deal with a view to weaken their competitors by attacking President Basescu himself – and one should not forget that the main political groups in the European Parliament would defend their own interests as the EU newcomer Romania has 35 seats.
Then, what’s actually at stake here? To date, Romanian Euro-MPs are distributed as it follows: 9 in the European People’s Party Group, 12 in the Socialist Group, 9 in the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats Group, and 5 in the ultra-nationalist ‘Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty’ Group.
In short: if Basescu’s supporters manage to win the May elections for the European Parliament, then the European People’s Party Group will get 4-6 new seats, the Socialists would lose at least 3 seats, the Liberals will also lose, and the ‘ITS’ far-right group will simply disappear (because they cannot afford to lose any seat in order to continue to exist as a group).
Today, Monday Jan. 29, Sebastian Lazaroiu said that a ‘CURS’ opinion poll shows that the recent political manoeuvres did not weaken President Basescu's popularity—on the contrary, he enjoys more popular support.
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