Translated material
Captain and Dracula
The Romanian president believes in the “Russian trace” and is ready for revenge
The political crisis in Romania will continue, although for now President Traian Basescu is beating the opposition , which sought his resignation. Yesterday the results of a referendum were announced, during which Romanians answered a simple question: “Do you agree with the resignation of President Basescu?” The majority (more than 74% of the vote) disagreed. Thus, the people expressed not only support for the president, but also dissatisfaction with the parliament, which removed the head of state from office a month ago, after which, according to Romanian laws, Saturday’s referendum was needed. True, the turnout was low - below 45%.The former sea captain, 55-year-old Traian Basescu , who unexpectedly showed himself to be a skilled politician, was accused of everything. And in corruption, and in “totalitarian tendencies”, and in interference in the affairs of the government, parliament, secret services and even business. The opposition criticized him for clumsy attempts to integrate Romania into the US-UK axis at the expense of relations with the European Union and Russia. By the way, the infighting in Romania makes one wonder whether the European Union was too hasty in accepting this country into its ranks at the beginning of this year. The organization is already thinking about possible sanctions against the Romanians: the protracted crisis has greatly slowed down reforms.
The crisis began with discord in the coalition of democrats and liberals that ruled after the 2004 elections, or rather, with a conflict between their leaders - President Traian Basescu and Prime Minister Calin Popescu-Tariceanu , as well as other members of the government. As a result, the coalition collapsed.
The procedure for impeaching the president in early April in parliament was initiated by another opposition group - the Social Democratic Party (PSD), which has its own scores to settle with Basescu. And although the constitutional court did not find gross violations of the law in the president’s actions, on April 19, 322 out of 430 deputies from all parties with the exception of the pro-presidential Democratic party unanimously voted for removal .
On the eve of the referendum, Basescu's supporters displayed models of 322 stakes (according to the number of deputies who voted for impeachment) in one of the capital's parks with a hint of retribution in the style of the Wallachian prince Vlad the Impaler-Dracula. And immediately after Basescu learned of the victory, he hastened to give a broad interpretation of the results of the referendum: parliament should leave, since the people supported the “election program” of the president - a war with the oligarchs, a revision of the constitution in the interests of expanding the powers of the president, single-mandate elections in order to reform the political class, lustration law...
But in the referendum only one question was proposed. And the president’s claims to expand the topic promise nothing but new tensions and conflicts. The opposition is ready for this. “Basescu is not without charisma, but he is a populist demagogue with authoritarian tendencies. He doesn’t know how to learn lessons and will continue to destabilize the situation,” former President Ion Iliescu, now honorary chairman of the Social Democratic Party, said in an interview with Vremya Novostey.
Traian Basescu is indeed already promising a “new revolution”. Immediately after the announcement of the preliminary voting results, he came to Bucharest's University Square to see his fans and invited them to meet at this place “every three months, on Saturday” to “give a report to the people.” And although the conciliatory notes heard in his first speech after the victory did not go unnoticed, there are rumors in Bucharest that he could even bring people into the streets and provoke a “Romanian-Romanian war,” as the leader of the miners’ trade unions Miron Cosma did more than once , currently in prison. Instability may last until new presidential elections in 2009.
The pro-American bias in the president’s foreign policy will also continue. “Romania’s relations with Russia will worsen, because President Basescu has previously criticized Moscow, and this month he even made serious, unfair accusations against Russia,” a famous Romanian political scientist, one of the leaders of the Ziua newspaper, told VN (“VN”). Day") Sorin Rosca-Stanescu. This refers to Traian Basescu’s attempts to blame Russia for the crisis in the country: he saw a “Russian trace” in the impeachment story, and in April pointed significantly to the visit of the Russian “political strategist and freemason” Alexander Kondiakov, who visited Bucharest shortly before the parliament’s decision on removal of the head of state from power.
Our interlocutor sees the future foreign policy of Romania this way: “The President outlined his strategy - openly hostile to Moscow and restrained towards the European Union. Strongly pro-American. While the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, subordinate to the government, will pursue a policy closer to the countries of the European Union, extremely moderate in relation to Moscow and friendly to the United States, but while maintaining a distance.”