Romanian Elections&Politics (June 9th - Local and europarliamentary elections)

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Btw anyone still interested in this?

I read this thread regularly and appreciate it dearly, fwiw.

[Zinneke]

RGM what do make of Ciolos's REPER and if there is a "good guy" between him and Barna which one is it? I heard Barna was involved in corruption, while Ciolos less so. But the latter is more old school and wouldn't change much if elected.

[RGM2609]

RGM what do make of Ciolos's REPER and if there is a "good guy" between him and Barna which one is it? I heard Barna was involved in corruption, while Ciolos less so. But the latter is more old school and wouldn't change much if elected.

First of all, thanks everyone for your comments! Seeing that there is still interest, I will continue regularly updating this thread!

I do not think that looking at Ciolos and Barna in a good guy/bad guy way is best. In my opinion, they both mean well and are decent, competent individuals that I would take over 80% of our political class any day. Certainly there is no comparison between them and people like Ciolacu, Iohannis and Ciuca. However, they have in my view both reached the limits of their capabilities and usefulness as politicians (at least on the internal scene, Ciolos probably still has a long career ahead of him in Brussels if he wants it). Ciolos has proved himself to be a weak leader - unable to focus his attention on the right matters, unable to take the initiative or to take decisive action, no power to set the agenda. Basically in all positions he was in, Ciolos got stuck trying to please everyone, making all kinds of compromises while spending no time actually leading. Barna has the opposite problem - he is/was far too willing to act like a mini-dictator and quash all internal dissent. He burnt too many bridges, alienated too many people and further divided USR. The corruption thing was BS tho (we were supposed to believe that Barna went through a lot of trouble to steal 60 dollars or something like that). Crucially, they also are weak campaigners. Barna infamously lost to Viorica Dancila, but when Ciolos was the PM candidate of PNL, they lost to PSD by 25%. The biggest successes of USR were despite or with no connection to them. As I said, time to go. As far as USR vs REPER goes, I just do not see the point of REPER to be honest or the reason for which it exists, other than to serve the ego of some people. And it stands no chance to reach the threshold unless something radically changes. So I would still vote for USR.

Hope that makes it clear and sorry for this long response.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

Hope that makes it clear and sorry for this long response.

Please don't apologise, it wasn't particularly long and it was a valuable perspective. Always good to have more people banging the drum for Central and Eastern Europe in this board.

[RGM2609]

Florin Citu, the politician who managed to end his career in an unprecedented way, got forced to resign from his last office, the Senate Chairmanship, today. While it is always good to see that deranged gnome just generally losing, the reason for which it happened is both hillarious and terrifying. PNL leaders forced him to resign...because he criticized PSD too much. Basically after he got previously ousted from the Prime Ministership and the PNL leadership, that man-child got angry and decided to posture a bit by sending out anti-PSD statements, saying how much he dislikes the coalition (which he played no part in forming) and how PSD is being populist and spends/steals too much (which is absolutely true). PNL leaders decided that these criticisms threatened the stability (of their personal income) and decided to oust him. It is has been alledged that Ciolacu personally asked for this firing. PNL - PSD but yellow.

[RGM2609]

After the former Agriculture Minister Adrian Chesnoiu (PSD) had to resign because he was indicted for rigging civil service exams, PSD had to nominate someone else for the office. And they chose...Petre Daea, who held the office in both the Nastase and the 3 Dragnea governments. He is quite a peculiar personality, with an unhealthy obsession for cormorants. He is already getting at it now, as after the government called for farmers to limit their water usage given the ongoing drought, he said: "I am not doing that. Plants need water." Sigh.

Anyway, back to real business. The USR leadership vote just started and the guy I told you would be the main opposition to Drula, Allen Coliban, is not even a candidate anymore. I fully expect a Drula victory, which means Barna and his allies keeping  control of the party. And the presidential election of 2024 is already fascinating some politicians. Iohannis can not run for another term (not that he'd win if he could run) and is now struggling to split his time between holidays and trying to explain to the public that Ponta and Ciuca copying their doctorate thesis is TOTALLY not the same, trust me. That lifestyle clearly appeals to many politicians. The biggest fight is for the PSD nod. Ciolacu, learning from history, does not want to run, and so former Bucharest Mayor Gabriela Firea and Health Minister Alexandru Rafila are desperate for the nod. So is Mircea Geoana, the 2009 PSD candidate who is trying to stage a comeback as a catch-all type of candidate. Geoana seems likely to run with or without the blessing of PSD. There are also rumours that Laura Codruta Kovesi is also thinking about resigning from her position in Brussells to run for the Presidency, possibly as an USR candidate, through Geoana seems far more likely to pull the trigger, given that his wife has already launched his support committee. The election could happen earlier if Iohannis gets offered to be the Secretary of NATO in 2023, a position which he desperately wants but seems unlikely to get after he brought back PSD to power.

Oh, and one last thing! I don't know if I mentioned it already, but Viorica Dancila has formed a new party!! And what better way to launch it (and more characteristic of her) than to...march with 40 people in unbearable heat and sing: "Let there be peace on Earth and bread on every table". Oh, I really missed her.

[RGM2609]

USR leadership election results

Acting Leader Catalin Drula - 71,3%
MP Catalin Tenita - 14,9%
Fmr. Chair of Environmental Guard Octavian Berceanu - 11,2%
All others - 2,6%

While it was obvious that Drula would win, few expected such a crushing victory. This is certainly a triumph for the Barna wing, which has now established itself as the dominating force in USR. It remains to be seen whether a new party is formed by the losers or if this triggers another wave of departures to REPER.

[RGM2609]

Time for a semi-effortpost! After the international consulting firm Oxford Analytica published a devastating review of our Supreme Leader President Klaus Iohannis and his regime, I thought it was time to share how the counterattack by the political establishment is going and how Romania may, ever so slightly, begin to experience a backsliding.

The one awakening event related to the true nature of the Presidential intentions came on June 7th, when a draft of the planned overhaul of the intelligence agencies was leaked. The elusive nature of said agencies, their seemingly strong influence on the Presidents and the weakness of Parliamentary control led to them being the subject of numerous conspiracy theories and national obsessions, so when the government announced its intentions to rewrite the bill regulating the secret services which has been in place since 1991, it was generally regarded as a good thing. Then, the draft was published. Not only did it erase the control of Parliament, leaving the services only accountable to the Presidency and vastly increase the authority of the agencies, it also appeared to have been written by the intelligence officers themselves. Despite the public uproar, Iohannis did not denounce the draft, focusing on attacking the leakers, and dismissed calls to replace the head of the Romanian Information Office, who just so happens to be a close collaborator.

As Iohannis has reduced his public appearances to almost zero, and his popularity plunged due to both the controversial PSD-PNL coalition and the 15% inflation rate, PSD was left to its own devices, fighting more discretely than in other governments against the judicial system, a fight of which not few PNL politicians silently approve. The government has used both the carrot and the stick in its attempt to make judges comply. It raised the already high pensions for magistrates while using its influence to get two judges known for their anti-corruption stance kicked out of the judiciary, including the one who convicted Professor Dan Voiculescu, who is now an informal Presidential adviser. Earlier this month, PSD and PNL have weakened the protections for whistle-blowers, despite a provision in the NGEU agreement asking them to strengthen said protections. The whole NGEU project in Romania is in great danger, as the original agreement, negotiated by USR Minister Cristian Ghinea, includes many reforms deemed as dangerous by the incumbents.

Another problem for Romania is the growing militarization of our government as Iohannis made Nicolae Ciuca, a General clearly tied with intelligence agencies and a lackey of the Presidency with no national legitimacy the Prime Minister. His shtick of competence and statesmanship was damaged by the revelation that he plagiarized his Doctorate thesis. The journalist who revealed this dealt with numerous threats, including from Policemen. Speaking of journalists, the press has been largely silenced by PSD and PNL, who used their increased subsidies to pay over 7 million euros just between January and May 2022 in contracts with televisions, radios, websites and newspapers, officially for ads and information campaigns. Of course, the implicit demands is "no bad coverage", which the press happily complies with. Some main beneficiaries have been the televisions of Securitate collaborator Professor Dan Voiculescu and of fugitive oligarch anti-Soros patriot Sebastian Ghita. Due to this, when Ponta and Ciuca both tried to disband the institutions investigating their doctorate thesis, only one of them started a national scandal.

So yeah, a lot of legitimate worries about the evolution of Romanian political system. And you have made it through this wall of text, so congrats!

[Beagle]

Hi RGM!
I was wondering if you have any comments about the rise and fall of BlueAir? They are crying foul about the government forcing them into bankruptcy, is there any truth in that?

[RGM2609]

Hi RGM!
I was wondering if you have any comments about the rise and fall of BlueAir? They are crying foul about the government forcing them into bankruptcy, is there any truth in that?

Hey! In my opinion, no. But it's obviously rather complicated, and I won't claim that I for sure drew the right conclusions. But without further ado -

The key moment here is October 2020. BlueAir was by then already in massive debt, and had signed earlier in the year a preventive agreement with creditors to prevent the company from going bankrupt. So, not a good company to bet on right? Nevertheless, the Orban Government chose to loan them 60 million euros. It certainly didn't have anything to do with the fact that the person who was the real owner of the company was a cross-party donor but especially a staunch supporter of Ludovic Orban. Now that person is in a jail. Alright, back to the topic. Florin Citu, then-Minister of Finance, who had to officially approve the loan, suddenly felt the need for some relaxation and went on vacation. The order was signed by a more brave Secretary of State, who is now a Minister, so boldness pays off, right? Anyway, the only guarantee of the loan was that if it wasn't paid, the Romanian government will get 75% of the shares of BlueAir.

Needless to say, BlueAir did not pay the loan. The hows and whens are unclear, but it seems as if the in a matter of months the Romanian government will become the owner of 75% of the company. The shareholders, meanwhile, have been hard at work transferring anything valuable to a different company that they own, AirConnect. So it is very likely that when the government takes over, it will take over a corpse. A corpse, with 230 million euros in debt that is.

[RGM2609]

Needless to say, BlueAir did not pay the loan. The hows and whens are unclear, but it seems as if the in a matter of months the Romanian government will become the owner of 75% of the company. The shareholders, meanwhile, have been hard at work transferring anything valuable to a different company that they own, AirConnect. So it is very likely that when the government takes over, it will take over a corpse. A corpse, with 230 million euros in debt that is.

This actually happened four days ago. While AirConnect is beginning to rise, the government is left with the indebted corpse of BlueAir, which they are eager to sell off, and apparently an American investor is interested in getting into the airline market in the South-East of Europe, through I still view the deal as unlikely given the issues. Of course, this was an entirely preventable mess but the only thing the Minister of Transportation Sorin Grindeanu (PSD, yeah the one who tried to legalize corruption in 2017) has had only one concern above all else: not getting blamed for it.

[RGM2609]

Now it is time for something I always wanted to do but never found the time to: the political history of Romania! I will try to go through the first year today (by far the most packed with action) and let me know if you are interested in the following parts given that they require quite a bit of research given that I was not even born during the events I will describe today xd. Alright, so without further ado:

The History of Romanian Politics

1990: An original democracy

The sudden collapse of the Communist regime led by Nicolae Ceausescu, which had taken a decidedly North Korean turn in its last decade, was initially received by the Romanian people with great joy, but that joy was quickly replaced by confusion, as most of them never lived in a democratic society and while the Ceausescu regime was despised, it also gave them a guarantee of what their future will be. Now, they didn't know what could possibly come next. In this environment rose the star of Ion Iliescu, a former Communist who self-proclaimed himself as the leader of the Revolution and became Acting President after Ceausescu's death. His combination of sophisticated vocabulary and populist mannerisms proved to be the perfect combination to ensure the population of the time that someone will take care of them.

Iliescu managed to ensure that the former communist structures, without their former leadership, will continue to have an important role, and he embodied the ideal of the Romanian society back then: communism with a human face, as he himself called it. However, there were also those who desired an actual change and a definitive break with communism, especially the youth and those in big urban centers. Large crowds began to gather every day in the center of Bucharest, demanding the resignation of Acting President Iliescu and a country which is not led by the former Communists. Iliescu managed to turn the great majority against the gatherings, characterizing the protesters as hooligans and extremists who were opposed to all former PCR members (around 4 million). As mentioned before, the society at large was more opposed to Ceausescu than to communism as an ideology.

In this divisive climate, the first elections were held. Iliescu and his party had to fight against the refounded historical parties, PNL and PNTCD, both of which proposed intellectuals who fled Communist Romania for the Presidency. While very respectable individuals, they were not necessarily in touch with what the people wanted, thinking that their deeply rooted anti-communism is shared by everyone. The so-called original democracy proposed by Iliescu was much more closer to the heart of the average Romanian than the Western model promoted by Ion Ratiu, the PNTCD candidate, now widely admired but back then despised due to his aristocratic elegance, underlined by his trademark bow tie.

Another complaint was that they didn't live in Romania during communism. But even the story of Corneliu Coposu, the PNTCD leader who spent 17 years as a political prisoner, didn't impress the masses, as thousands of brainwashed factory workers tried to lynch him in one of the darkest days of Romanian democracy, and only the intervention of the Army saved his life. To ensure victory, Iliescu started bribing the population was massive populist handouts, which added to the inflationary problems in the 1990s. The results, however, were never really in question:

1990 Romanian Presidential Election
Acting President Ion Iliescu (FSN) - 85.1%
Mr. Radu Campeanu (PNL) - 10.6%
Mr. Ion Ratiu (PNTCD) - 4.3%

1990 Romanian Legislative Election
National Salvation Front - 66.3%
Democratic Union of Hungarians - 7.2%
National Liberal Party - 6.4%

However, even after this crushing victory, the resistance of the protesters in the center of Bucharest did not break, and they continued to gather every night in the center of the city to protest against Iliescu and the former Communists leading the country. On 13th June, a few weeks after Iliescu won the election, the Police and Armed Forces entered in force trying to clean up the gathering. It is unclear who ordered it to this day, but the protesters responded violently to this attempt of sending them home and the whole thing turned into an massive riot. That evening, Iliescu appeared on TV and called on the population to defend the country from what he called a neo-fascist coup attempt. Tens of thousands of miners heeded the call and went to Bucharest, seemingly helped by the security services, where, in the events now known as the Mineriad, brutally restored order and beat up anyone who happened to stay in their way. The miners were personally congratulated by Iliescu afterward. The event clearly proved that the original democracy Iliescu wanted was indeed original, but not too much of a democracy.

[RGM2609]

Thanks so much for all the recommendations, time to begin part 2 of what promises to be a long, long series. If you have any feedback on these posts, any questions on either what I talk about today or current events, by all means feel free to ask! Alright, let's get into this

The History of Romanian Politics

June 1990-1995: Stagnation

Following the first half of the year characterized by instability and violence, the Romanian people were slowly discovering the advantages of capitalism. A whole class of small businessmen appeared, taking cheap goods from Turkey and selling them in Romania at much greater prices. The population, desperate to have more things for themselves after the trauma of communism, bought these in droves, and the new businessmen got richer and richer. Funnily enough, many of the politicians and oligarchs who gave us nightmares in the 21st Century come from exactly this type of background. Oh, the chaos of Transition! And this isn't even the worst type of businessman coming around in the early 1990s. A lot of former officers of the Securitate, the Communist secret police, especially those involved in the trade deals of Communist Romania, were allowed by Iliescu to turn into businessmen, and then monopolized the markets using their previous contacts. UGH. 30 years later, many of these people or their children are still in Forbes 500.

Anyway, despite these capitalistic efforts, most people still worked in state-owned factories. Ironically, the workers thought that now after the downfall of communism, they were the true owners of these factories, and did whatever they wanted with no accountability to the Bucharest Government, while demanding higher wages and less working hours from them. Meanwhile, as these factories lost their clients with the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the Romanian economy was collapsing. The best chance for these factories was foreign investment, but even where Prime Minister Petre Roman got foreign companies to be willing to buy some of these factories, the workers  took it to the streets chanting: "we won't sell our country!" and refused to go to work, while most of these prospective deals were rejected by President Iliescu, himself a former Communist and surrounded by an inner circle of Marxist ideologues.

By 1991, it was clear that Iliescu and Roman could not continue to govern together. After Roman pushed through Parliament the Law of Privatisation, which would have begun the selling of state-owned companies to private factories, despite overwhelming opposition from Iliescu's allies, the miners came to Bucharest again. They assailed the Victoria Palace, which was curiously not protected by any law enforcement, and devastated the building. In light of the loss of control, Petre Roman had to resign. Iliescu achieved his goal. However, the miners, drunk on their own power and unhappy with Iliescu continuing to break all of his promises, couldn't be controlled by their leaders and tried to attack the Presidency too. They failed, because interestingly, law enforcement did protect the building, but it forced Iliescu to publicly sit down with these thugs and try to reach an accord, worried that they might one day come back and succeed in taking him out. The images horrified Western Europe.

Following the downfall of the Roman Government, an unremarkable National Unity government led by Theodor Stolojan replaced it, while the National Salvation Front split into two parties: the Roman wing keeping the old name and the Iliescu wing forming the Democratic National Salvation Front. Meanwhile the liberal parties united in an alliance called the Romanian Democratic Convention. The election in 1992 had the following results:

1992 Romanian Presidential Election - FIRST round
President Ion Iliescu (FDSN) - 47.3%
Rector Emil Constantinescu (CDR) - 31.2%
Mayor Gheorghe Funar (PUNR) - 10.9%

1992 Romanian Presidential Election - SECOND round
President Ion Iliescu (FDSN) - 61.4%
Rector Emil Constantinescu (CDR) - 38.6%

1992 Romanian Legislative Election
Democratic National Salvation Front - 27.8%
Romanian Democratic Convention - 20.1%
National Salvation Front - 10.2%
Romanian National Unity Party - 7.7%
Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania - 7.5%

Despite great hopes from many and a clear decline in his popularity in just 2 years, the elections were a clear victory for Iliescu, who was re-elected President and a government was formed around his party FDSN, supported by both the far-right and the far-left in Parliament. In charge of the new government was Nicolae Vacaroiu, who was the standard "party economist" before the Revolution and virtually unknown before his nomination. Needless to say, this new government was unwilling to do anything about the industrial collapse. Factories continued to produce things nobody was buying, of questionable quality because Ceausescu, deep in his national-communist phase, stopped all technological imports, while the government subsidized this factories to maintain the illusion that the industry was working. So the so-called "Stagnation" began: everyone was pretending things were going well and the government was trying to wish the problems away. There was no strategy, and the backwards nature of the Iliescu regime as well as the regular violence by miners and workers made foreign investors run away from Romania.

Meanwhile the aforementioned businessmen class was growing stronger and stronger. The Iliescu regime supported their rise, allowing them to bankrupt banks, loot and steal whatever they could and gave preferential laws to help their rise. For example, there were a lot of decisions removing custom tax for 12 hours, as a certain influential person had to take goods through the border. In exchange, these businessmen started financially supporting parties and entered in all parties, gaining a lot of influence. Meanwhile, by 1994 the illusions maintained by Iliescu and Vacaroiu were starting to fade: the heavy state spending to keep factories afloat started off a skyrocketing inflation, which all Romanians were struggling to survive, and workers started going on unending strikes seeing their wages devalue.

Romania was entering an economic collapse. The rate of inflation reached 300%, leading to many people losing their lifetime savings. Others were unable to afford eating or basic utilities. The oligarchs were starting to create pyramidal schemes, ripping naive and desperate people of their last money. In the villages, after collective farms collapsed and the Romanian government, influenced by Marxist thought, ignored their plights, peasants were left to work their fields like they did before the First World War. Going into the 1996 Election, there were dark times in our country.

[S019]

Hi RGM,

I was wondering based on current polls what the viable coalition alignments could be and if any party would be willing to work with AUR.

[RGM2609]

Hi RGM,

I was wondering based on current polls what the viable coalition alignments could be and if any party would be willing to work with AUR.

Hey, thank you for the question. First of all, I wouldn't recommend putting much faith in the current polling for 2 main reasons:
1. By this point the people are very apathetic, saying their voting preferences more out of habit. As they tune in in this year and the next I think we're going to see large shifts.
2. Most if not all polling companies who publish polls nowadays have secret contracts with the corrupt coalition PSD-PNL because otherwise they couldn't fund their activities. And so the polls's goal is just as much to influence public opinion as to reflect it.

On the coalition preferences, if PSD, PNL and UDMR have a majority after the next election, they will continue the coalition. PSD really enjoys this arrangement, which so far led to PSD having all the power and PNL taking all the blame. And PNL has no chance of ever being in government other than playing second fiddle to PSD after everything that's happened. A test of this coalition will take place in May of this year, when PSD is supposed to take the Prime Ministership and in exchange hand over some important ministries to PNL.

On the AUR question, while PSD prefers working with PNL as a more "safe and stable" partner, if they had to they'd form a coalition with AUR quite easily. The so-called "cordon sanitaire" was never in place in Romania.

[CumbrianLefty]

I genuinely did not realise things got that bad in Romania by the mid-1990s.

Almost the late Ceausescu years all over again.

[RGM2609]

Thank you so much for the recommendations! This motivated me to do the next part much faster than I anticipated! So nice seeing my work being liked, and again if you have any feedback/questions I'm here for it!

History of Romanian Politics

1995-1999: Change

Entering 1995, following 5 years of disastrous governance which left Romanians on the brink of the starvation, Iliescu started worrying that unless he changed directions and did so fast, he might meet Ceausescu's fate (as CumbrianLefty's comment intuited). His fantasies about relying upon Gorbachev's USSR were dashed once the Soviet Union collapsed, and the years of Vacaroiu Government showed that the "original democracy" failed. Iliescu did have strong political beliefs, but in all honesty he cared for power more. Thus he announced integration in EU and NATO, a goal supported by almost the entire population, to be the national priority. Romanians were placing their hopes with the West. He also got all the parliamentary parties to sign the "Snagov Declaration", declaring European integration their shared objective. To truly showcase how desperate the situation was, consider that parties like the far-right nationalist Greater Romania Party, led by infamous lunatic Corneliu Vadim Tudor, and the Socialist Party of Labour, led by a former Prime Minister under Ceausescu, also signed the statement.

Another earth-shattering event happened in 1995: the death of Corneliu Coposu, a former political prisoner who became the founder of PNTCD following the Revolution. The same man who was nearly lynched by angry crowds in 1990 was now mourned by the entire country, and a massive crowd of tens of thousands attended his funeral, grieving Coposu. Post-mortem, he was recognized as the symbol of morality in politics, truly showing how much mentalities had changed since the Revolution.

In this context, great energies and hopes were placed behind the Romanian Democratic Convention, the alliance of liberal parties opposed to the Iliescu regime, lead by PNTCD. This alliance proposed for the Presidency an university professor named Emil Constantinescu, a protege of the late Coposu. The great momentum behind the idea of "change" allowed Constantinescu, a fundamentally uncharismatic and wooden candidate, to hold through an attempt by the former Prime Minister Petre Roman to sweep the anti-Iliescu electorate from under him. Following his entrance in the runoff alongside Iliescu, virtually every non-extremist party, together with most private press and celebrities, consolidated behind Constantinescu. This mobilization, alongside with the economic disaster ongoing in the country, sealed Iliescu's defeat. The first peaceful transfer of power was about to happen.

1996 Romanian Presidential Election - FIRST round
President Ion Iliescu (PDSR) - 32.3%
Rector Emil Constantinescu (CDR) - 28.2%
Fmr. Prime Minister Petre Roman (PD) - 20.5%
Senator Gyorgy Frunda (UDMR) - 6%

1996 Romanian Presidential Election - SECOND round
Rector Emil Constantinescu (CDR) - 54.4%
President Ion Iliescu (PDSR) - 45.6%

1996 Romanian Parliamentary Election
Romanian Democratic Convention - 30.2%
Party of Social Democracy in Romania - 21.5%
Social Democratic Union PD-PSDR - 12.9%
Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania - 6.6%

On the night of the second round, after it became clear that Iliescu lost, hundreds of thousands of people gathered spontaneously in the center of Bucharest to celebrate. To them, this result the true end of communism and Romania entering democracy and prosperity. Sadly, their dreams were about to face up with reality. As the 1996-1997 winter proved to be the most challenging yet, the Convention showed that it was not as ready to govern as it pretended to be. They claimed to have tens of thousands of experts ready to change the state structures, but they had to nominate for Prime Minister a mediocre trade unionist named Victor Ciorbea, because of the lack of better options.

The Ciorbea Government tried to implement the kind of drastic reforms of state-owned factories that the Iliescu regime avoided like the plague. It soon became clear that Ciorbea did not have the clout to get things truly moving, the workers were protesting and striking against the Government nearly every day and the Convention was collapsing in the public opinion. However, the last straw came from a random Transportation Minister named Traian Basescu (PD), of whom nobody has heard since, who publicly claimed at the end of 1997 that Ciorbea was too incompetent to carry out reforms. The Democratic Party backed his statement and Ciorbea found himself losing the confidence of his coalition partners. He resigned in March 1998. To replace him, PNTCD had to find yet another expert, and they settled on Radu Vasile, a supposed teacher of economic science, who was in reality an utterly incompetent clown. Vasile liked to make jokes when asked about economic prognosis, and in their memoirs politicians are saying he preferred to play computer games in his office over attending governmental duties. Romania was left ungoverned during a full-blown economic crisis and it dangerously approached bankruptcy.

In this context, the miners decided it's time to go back to Bucharest. In January 1999, over 10.000 miners left the Jiu Valley once more, committed to make the government stop lowering their wages and closing their unprofitable mines (even in this sad condition at the top, the government still did try out some reforms, more or less effectively). When the government sent in law enforcement to stop them on their way, the miners broke through the barriers and took hundreds of hostages, including some high-ranking county officials. With the miners moving forward to Bucharest, as they had hostages and the support of a large segment of the population who hated Constantinescu and the Vasile Cabinet, as well as unofficial deals with Vadim's Greater Romania and Iliescu's PDSR, the government was forced to cave. Vasile went to negotiate with the thugs and gave in to all of their demands. The mines continued to function for many years, despite them being unprofitable, and the last remnants of credibility of the CDR-PD coalition vanquished.

If there is one thing the Constantinescu Presidency and CDR got right, it was foreign policy. In stark contrast with Iliescu's hesitation, Constantinescu ran an unabashedly pro-NATO/EU foreign policy, in tune with the desires of the population, for whom Western integration remained a long-held priority. However, Europe still looked with skepticism, and the military was not nearly on par for NATO membership. The real reason for which Romania was allowed in when it was the Kosovo War. When the United States needed permission to bomb Serbia, Emil Constantinescu got it done, despite resistance from the pro-Serbia public opinion. After this act, we were on track to join both NATO and the European Union. Oh, how different does real history look from collective fantasies...

[Beagle]

... A lot of former officers of the Securitate, the Communist secret police, especially those involved in the trade deals of Communist Romania, were allowed by Iliescu to turn into businessmen, and then monopolized the markets using their previous contacts. UGH. 30 years later, many of these people or their children are still in Forbes 500.

My admiration for the project, RGM, this is brilliant work, although I'm sure you're making agonizing choices what to include and what not in this 'executive summary'.

After reading the early part, though, I began wondering about agency in several meanings of the word. In my 'Old Right' circles, you'll find many people who readily attribute any ills in Bulgaria's present, past and future - up to and including your cat scratching up the furniture - to the old State Security apparatus, who malevolently control every party, the state functionaries and administration, major enterprises and, of course, the police and prosecutorship. These days even the rookies of the last State Security intake (1989) are approaching retirement age, but this omnipotent image lingers on.

However, it is an indisputable fact that the Bulgarian State Security apparatus and its leaders who served the BSP loyally until 2001 or so massively infiltrated the dissident movement towards the tail end of Communism and, subsequently, the leadership of the anti-Communist/BSP catch-all party SDS (Union of Democratic Forces), and, arguably, formed DPS or at least channeled the Bulgarian Turks towards it. They also orchestrated events - too numerous to even list - that were meant to destroy the trust in SDS, its elected representatives and in democracy as such. I will not even venture into the economic side, but just sticking to the political:

- How much involvement did (ex-)Securitate people have with the opposition to Iliescu, at least in the early days?

- Which, if any, figures of the opposition camp were plants designed to syphon votes away from the 'organic' opposition (I am aware of Vadim Tudor, but I'm sure there were others)

- Would you say that the "integration in EU and NATO" was "a goal supported by almost the entire population" from 1989 or was there some watershed event, which moved public opinion - in Bulgaria this was the 1996-7 economic collapse, followed by the 1999 Kosovo war. Up to then, the ludicrous notion that Bulgaria could somehow declare neutrality - an Austria of the Balkans - was surprisingly popular and the official position of BSP and several other minor parties, not to mention the broad nostalgic support for the big brother mother Russia.

Strictly speaking, you guys did not give "permission to bomb Serbia" - the Aviano to Serbia  route does not overfly Romanian airspace, but you did give permission for NATO to use it. And, most importantly, you and us closed our airspace for Russia when they were trying to  move airborne forces to Pristina airport - and that, arguably, secured the NATO membership of Bulgaria and Romania.

[RGM2609]

Hey, thanks so much for your questions! These are great, and take everything I say with some grain of salt, as I wasn't around for the great battles of transition in the early 90s, so everything I say is based only on research and things I've heard about these complicated period. And indeed, the mystic role of the secret services/ex-Securitate is one of the great founding myths of Romania. The existance of a so-called "deep state" is one of the few things a 70-year-old PSD supporter and a 19-year-old USR voter might agree on. Of course, they have vastly different thoughts on the purpose they are using their power for. Now to your questions:

1.There is one critical difference between Bulgaria and Romania: Bulgarian State Security was able to foresee the Revolution and plan for it accordingly. It shocked Romanian Securitate. It is true that some parts of the secret services had plans to engineer the replacement of Ceausescu with Iliescu sometime in the early 1990s, but it was still supposed to happen under a communist system. The spontaneous pro-democracy uprising took them by surprise however, and while Iliescu was able to impose himself as its leader and drag the commumist apparatus to the next state, the context forced them to give civil liberties. Their efforts in the chaos weren't as much to inflitrate the weak opposition, but to give Iliescu the opportunity to squash it and impose a dictatorship or a "controlled democracy". It is also the way I personally choose the interpret the 1990 Mineriad.

2. Then, for whatever reason, Iliescu failed to abolish democracy. The services realised that it was time to learn how to play in the new system. And they did so, soon enough parties were infiltrated by secret service agents. I could speculate on who could've been an agent until tommorrow, I have quite a few theories on it myself. But I think the broader point to be remembered here is this: unlike in Bulgaria, they didn't use their power to help Iliescu. They used it to help themselves. So that whoever comes into power, they still have control over the system. In fact, the director of the Romanian Intelligence Service, Virgil Magureanu, whose relations with Iliescu broke during the Vacaroiu Government, publicly endorsed Emil Constantinescu in 1996.

3. I am aware of the distinctions, but I just wanted a simple phrase summarising what happened (sorry I was getting rather tired at that point haha) rather than a more in-depth dive in Balkan geopolitics. And the "unanimous support" phrase was accurate...as of 1995, the date of the signing of the Snagov Declaration. I will say that compared to Bulgaria, Romania never had a significant pro-Russian current, and even nowadays AUR, a clearly Russophillic party, has to tone down its beliefs to avoid a collapse in popularity. But in 1990 prevallent was the whole stupid "original democracy" idea, in which we wouldn't follow any country and just do our own thing. Iliescu made it a point of accusing his 1990 opposition of wanting to "sell the country to the West" which would send over owners and landlords to take away the rights of the average man. However, as mentalities slowly changed, together with the population realising who much more advanced the West truly was, the support started growing. And then there was the crah during the Vacaroiu Government which forever destroyed the credibility of the "original democracy". Romainians had to place their hopes somewhere.

Alright, this should be all. Hopefully I did a good job answering, but I am aware this is a complex subject and I may have gone off some tangents rather than give you the information you wanted, so if you have any follow-ups, please ask!

[RGM2609]

I believed I was going to move on with the series at a fast pace but alas, real life hits hard. Anyway, here is the beginning of the millennium for you, and if you have any feedback or question about current or past events, feel free to ask!

History of Romanian Politics

1999-2003: Anger

At the end of 1999, PNTCD and Constantinescu finally decided that in order to salvage what was left of their political capital, the buffoon Radu Vasile had to go. He was swiftly deposed and replaced with a technocrat: the Governor of the National Bank, Mugur Isarescu. His image finally granted the government an image of competence and stability, and with the economy at least not getting worse, many in the Convention did think that the 2000 election may turn out alright after all. Then...the dam broke.

The National Investment Fund, the latest pyramidal scheme which managed to convince hundreds of thousands of desperate citizens to give their lifetime savings, was an invention by Sorin Ovidiu Vantu, who started out by smuggling Turkish goods but moved on to much bigger illegalities. The Fund was by far the most successful institution of its kind, tricking people with generous promises and fancy TV ads using the now infamous slogan: "Sleep well. The Fund is working for you." In 2000, as the Fund collapsed taking the last hope of over 300000 citizens down with it, the Romanians stopped sleeping. The ensuing chaos and national drama was enhanced by the fact that a state bank guaranteed the Fund, making sure the CDR-PD government is also taking the blame for the event. It was the last drop. Emil Constantinescu soon announced he won't run again for the Presidency, declaring that he was "defeated by the system" and left his office after just one term, hated by an angry nation and humiliated by his own failures.

The most unpredictable election in Romanian history was thus on. Ion Iliescu was coming back roaring, with his popularity increased by the years of opposition against an chaotic government, even through a significant part of the population didn't forget the Mineriads or the Vacaroiu years and were still strongly opposed to him and his PDSR returning triumphantly. Meanwhile, the Democratic Convention fell apart, with PNL nominating the still popular former Prime Minister Theodor Stolojan, and the PNTCD supporting the current Prime Minister Mugur Isarescu. The stale campaigns of all of the above however didn't nearly capture the mood of the nation. To fill up the void rose Corneliu Vadim Tudor, an extremist nationalist, xenophobe and wannabe dictator but who captured very well the anger felt by large segments of the population with his style of...you know, being an insane lunatic. He took votes from the far left, far right, right-wingers disappointed by Constantinescu and anti-establishment young people, cobbling together a coalition strong enough to carry him into the second round, stunning the nation. 10 years after the Revolution, Romanians had to choose between Iliescu and Vadim. Even to this day, some liberals remember what they felt when they went into the voting booth and voted for Ion Iliescu. He won in a landslide, but millions of his votes were given with distaste, disgust or even hatred.

2000 Romanian Presidential Election - FIRST round
Fmr. President Ion Iliescu (PDSR) - 36.4%
Senator Corneliu Vadim Tudor (PRM) - 28.3%
Fmr. Prime Minister Theodor Stolojan (PNL) - 11.8%
Prime Minister Mugur Isarescu (CDR 2000) - 9.5%
Senator Gyorgy Frunda (UDMR) - 6.2%

2000 Romanian Presidential Election - SECOND round
Fmr. President Ion Iliescu (PDSR) - 66.8%
Senator Corneliu Vadim Tudor (PRM) - 33.2%

2000 Romanian Parliamentary Election
Social Democratic Pole PDSR-PUR-PSDR - 36.6%
Greater Romania Party - 19.5%
Democratic Party - 7%
National Liberal Party - 6.9%
Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania - 6.8%

PDSR returned to government, and during his final term, Iliescu stayed largely out of the spotlight, allowing the new generation of leadership to shine, represented by his political heir Adrian Nastase, who became Prime Minister. Nastase, to his credit, did start a process of reformation in the party, moving it away from Iliescu-style socialism and communist nostalgia and more towards centrism and pragmatism. The support for Western integration was clear, and so was the desire to welcome in foreign investors. Policy-wise, the Nastase Government was more like the CDR than the PDSR of the mid-1990s. And after many years, Romania's economy finally started growing. Life *was* getting better, and there was finally a sense of order compared to the chaos of the previous governments.

These years weren't all rainbows and sunshine however. Nastase, who wanted total control but knew he lacked Iliescu's charisma, persuasive skills or touch with the electorate, decided the best way to achieve it was to encourage large scale corruption. The national budget was looted by the now-called PSD politicians, whom Nastase was protecting from the judicial system, and especially at the county level, Nastase encourage the apparation of the "barons", County Chairman who were granted total control over the areas they led in exchange for bringing votes for Nastase and PSD. To ensure their loyalty, Nastase had to keep control over the justice system to protect his corrupt supporters, but that contradicted the requirements to join the EU. So he tried to trick the Europeans. He formed a new institution called PNA, the predecessor of DNA, meant to fight off the endemic corruption, but he himself sabotaged it by creating legislation full of loopholes and placing his allies at the top of it in order to control it. By 2003, the EU was getting rather tired of Nastase's antics.

Even so, nationally, Adrian Nastase was extremely powerful, and PSD was dominating the political scene. Despite many people feeling disconnected from their arrogant leader, the road to the Presidency seemed clear and with no obstacles. Instead of a conclusion here is a response from Nastase related to the various corruption allegations: "Someone wanted to come and count my chickens. They should rather come and count my eggs."

[RGM2609]

History of Romanian Politics

2003-2007: Justice

With PSD, governing in an alliance with the eternal UDMR, running seemingly-almighty Adrian Nastase for the Presidency and Vadim unable to create his 2000 magic and shockingly finding out people were getting bored of him, it came down to the remnants of the previous government, PNL and PD to propose an alternative to the Prime Minister. The two parties allied with each other, more out of desperation than love for one another, and proposed former Prime Minister Theodor Stolojan, who also ran from PNL in 2000, for the Presidency.

During the few months in which Stolojan was supposedly going to be the center-right candidate against Nastase, it became clear that he was completely unfit for the job. Even more so than in his previous campaign, his lack of charisma was shining through, and so was a sense of dread, a physical and psychological weakness and above all, complete exhaustion. With such a candidate, who only enhanced by comparison Nastase's aura of invincibility, wasn't going to be close. So, near the beginning of the electoral campaign, a decision was made that Stolojan was not going to be the candidate, and a supposed health scare was manufactured. His replacement, PD leader and Bucharest Mayor Traian Basescu, used the opportunity to cry on the shoulder of the supposedly dying Stolojan during a press conference.

Nastase quickly found himself taken out of his element by his opponent, a colorful populist who was willing to use any and all means at his disposal to ensure his victory, and someone who could excite his supporters far better than the incumbent PM ever could. While Basescu ran around the country meeting people and creating genuine enthusiasm around his anti-corruption promises, even having from time to time a Vadim-like discourse (from whom he did take a lot of voters), while Nastase was staying stuck in his office or in the studios of state-controlled media and in the few moments he was sent out campaigning by his consultants, he created some extremely, extremely cringe-worthy moments. It was just coming out wrong. A certain victory was becoming a close race. And then there was the debate. Oh Lord. The entire country got to watch Nastase confusedly watching Basescu wondering what curse is it on the nation that it keeps having to choose between communists, hitting one of the most sensitive themes for disaffected and disappointed voters. On election day, the electorate shockingly ignored the economy to sanction arrogance and corruption:

2004 Romanian Presidential Election - FIRST round
Prime Minister Adrian Nastase (PSD-PUR) - 40.9%
Mayor Traian Basescu (PD-PNL) - 33.9%
Senator Corneliu Vadim Tudor (PRM) - 12.6%
Senator Marko Bela (UDMR) - 5.1%

2004 Romanian Presidential Election - SECOND round
Mayor Traian Basescu (PD-PNL) - 51.2%
Prime Minister Adrian Nastase (PSD-PUR) - 48.8%

2004 Romanian Parliamentary Election
National Union PSD-PUR - 36.6%
Justice and Truth PNL-PD - 31.3%
Greater Romania Party - 12.9%
Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania - 6.2%

Despite PSD winning the parliamentary election, PNL-PD managed to form the new government by rallying around it both UDMR and...PSD's coalition partner, PUR or the Humanist Party of Romania, controlled by oligarch Dan Voiculescu. With these unsavory tactics, Calin Popescu Tariceanu, the new PNL leader after Stolojan's withdrawal, became Prime Minister. Basescu's first order of business after he got elected President was to deliver on his main campaign message: the fight against corruption. He imposed an independent Minister of Justice, Monica Macovei, and a change of guard in the leadership of judicial institutions. It is also when Kovesi first got into a high-ranking position in the system.

The first sign of a change in the justice system came in 2006, when an investigation was started against George Copos, Deputy Prime Minister from PUR and corrupt businessman. The news of this shook the political establishment to its core, especially Dan Voiculescu but also Prime Minister Tariceanu and the groups of interests behind him. Knowing that an independent justice was sooner or later going to be on their case, the oligarchs of transition and most parties began an offensive against President Basescu, whom they viewed as the force behind all of these newly-appearing investigations. In 2007, Basescu's Democratic Party was kicked out of the government by Tariceanu and soon after, the Parliament voted with a large majority to impeach the President. Dan Voiculescu didn't even hide that he was behind the procedure and he openly assumed the leadership of the commission which supposedly investigated Basescu's numerous offenses. The referendum failed miserably, for reasons which I think are fairly obvious:

Do you think President Basescu should be removed from office?
YES - 24.9%
NO - 75.1%

Despite Basescu coming back into office, ending a brief interim by Nicolae Vacaroiu, Tariceanu continued to govern with support from PSD, being a rather unpopular Prime Minister despite the flourishing economy and, of course, the fact that Romania finally joined the European Union fulfilling the national goal of the previous decades and raising the hopes and joy of Romanians to the sky. Also of note is the fact that Basescu managed to officially condemn communism in a very, very, profoundly shameful Parliamentary session during which Vadim Tudor, still a Senator at that point, sent his goons to threateningly surround anti-communist dissidents in protest.

[RGM2609]

I could write about how the PSD/PNL coalition is refusing to disband special pensions even when the EU recovery funds are at risk because of it, or how they tried to decriminalize corruption a la 2017, but why would I? Especially when we have this gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYg5H1xORew

Stop the planet, I want to leave!

[kaoras]

Any particular reason why PSD isn't crashing and burning in the polls?

[RGM2609]

Any particular reason why PSD isn't crashing and burning in the polls?

The main reason would be the fact that the polls are fake, commissioned by the 2 government parties to manipulate public opinion. But beyond that, the reasons for which it might be doing better than one would think are:
1. The media is also completely bought off. PSD and PNL are using their party subsidies to directly pay the news channels, which weren't squeaky clean institutions to begin with, most of them being owned by inmates, ex-inmates or fugitives.
2. PSD, while it is the party truly in power, is hiding behind PNL, which is doing an astoundingly good job at embarrassing themselves and being generally stupid. Both the party leader and the second-in-command have been in the middle of plagiarism scandals, the blame for the Schengen failure was taken by Iohannis, the inept Energy Minister from PNL has become a scapegoat for the high prices etc. PSD sometimes seems like a light of civic democracy compared to PNL.
3. Given that the #Rezist movement has led to PNL taking over the government, which in turn did...I'll refuse to characterize it, the Romanian public is largely tuned out from politics and cinicism is at its highest point post-Revolution. This is taking the wind out of the opposition's sails and keeps PSD, with its control over the Administration, the highest number of Mayors and Country Chairmen and a hard floor of support, afloat. They always benefit from low turnout, which is what we'll likely get.

Hopefully I answered your question! If there are any others, feel free to ask!

[Mike88]

A question about the state of the Romanian economy: Here in my country there was, and still is, a lot of talk and discussion regarding the latest Eurostat numbers that show that Romania "caught" Portugal in terms of GDP per capita in PPS, both at 77%.

How do you see the Romanian economy and its progress in the last few years.