Presidential elections in Romania - last news

Main candidates for presidential election were presented here two weeks ago, finally now we have 12 registered candidates for these elections, but the new ones has low chances, being supported by small non-parliamentary parties.

The start of official electoral campaign was in 23rd of October, but the “pre-campaign” is one year long and generated a strong political crisis. The crisis was initiated by Social-Democrats who decided to break the alliance with Democrat-Liberals on 5th of October. They voted against Government on a motion initiated by Liberals, together with Hungarians’ Party (UDMR) and minorities’ deputies. These three parties joined and asked to have an independent Prime Minister and supported for this nomination Mr. Klaus Johannis, the Mayor of Sibiu. President Traian Basescu refused this candidate and he nominated Mr. Lucian Croitoru, an economist from National Bank of Romania, with a strong background in economics and in negotiations (with International Monetary Fund and with syndicates), declaring that now we need for this position somebody with economic expertise.

The fight continues these days and the three parties declared that they will vote against Mr. Croitoru’s proposals for Government, only Democrat-Liberals are supporting him. Due to the fact that Democrat-Liberals has only 33% votes in Parliament, it seems that this Govern will be refused. According to the Constitution, the President can nominate another candidate in next days or go to the maximum extent and let this Emil Boc’s Govern (now only with Democrat-Liberal ministries) in function, with reduced powers, until the we will have a new President.

The separation of one year between parliamentary elections and presidential elections was legislated by Social-Democrats in 2004, hoping that Adrian Nastase (Prime Minister and president of Social-Democrats at that time) will win the presidential elections in 2004. Unfortunately for them, he lost in favor of Traian Basescu, and Mircea Geoana, actual president of Social-Democrats, claimed since December 2008, immediately after the Boc Government was installed, that the Government must be changed after presidential elections. So, this was a predictable political crisis, but the context of financial crisis seems to not been evaluated and it is possible to ruin some of politicians’ plans.

Meanwhile, Traian Basescu initiated a referendum for the change of Parliament structure and size, asking people if they agree to switch from a bi-cameral to a mono-cameral Parliament and to reduce the number of Parliament Members from 471 to less than 300. Using same strategy from 2007, he organized this referendum in the same day as presidential elections, 22nd of November.

In 2007, in order to increase the participation and thus the chances for Democrat-Liberals to win more places in European Parliament, he organized in elections day a referendum for uninominal vote. Not all conditions for validating that referendum were accomplished, due to the turnout under 50% and the uninominal vote was not adopted by that referendum. But, this way, he forced the Liberal minority Government from that time to adopt a law for uninominal Parliamentary elections from November 2008.

For the new referendum he bet on a negative image of Parliament, which is perceived by population to consume too much money for not too much activity, also being a center of corruption.

In first 3 days of electoral campaign, the strongest three candidates (Traian Basescu, Mircea Geoana and Crin Antonescu) traveled a lot, a newspaper counting 4.269 km for them in total. The fourth strong candidate, Sorin Oprescu, actual Bucharest Mayor haven’t leaved the capital and was present in more talk-shows on TV.

As usual, the candidates launched offers which are not related to presidential attributions, but to the welfare that will come if they will be elected. This approach shows again that all of them consider that in the position of president they will be almighty. It is quite strange, because the experience of Traian Basescu from 2004 to 2008, when he was fighting with Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu and from 2009 when the Govern of his party (Democrat Liberals) was dismissed two weeks ago, show that this position is not as strong as they believe.

Anyway, the campaign will be dominated less by offers than by attacks.

And the main target remains Traian Basescu and Democrat-Liberal Party which now form the Government, but with less power, because is a dismissed Govern. We shall se if he will succeed again, as in May 2007 when he was suspended by Parliament and won with the slogan “Alone against all”.