“In 2012 we have elections. Let’s trust in what Romanians will consider to be the best for Romania and let’s await their vote in the elections which, I repeat, will take place in 2012. We are discussing whether or not it is better for them to take place two months ahead of schedule,” Prime Minister Emil Boc said on Saturday.
Anti-government protests continued for the tenth consecutive day, but at a much lower scale than before.
Everybody is talking about dialogue, but so far this has only been a rhetorical exercise. Dialogue needs to go beyond politics and include teachers, economists and sociologists.
Awaiting Monday’s joint parliamentary session, the ruling coalition and the opposition leveled accusations at each other. Boc accused opposition Social Liberal Union (USL) of demanding before the European Parliament the freeze of EU funds for Romania. The opposition Social Democratic Party, part of USL, said the accusation is false.
During Monday’s extraordinary Parliament session, the opposition will urge the Government to resign and will call for early elections.
Organizing early elections is not a simple procedure, though. The Parliament has to reject two Government investiture proposals within 60 days, which means that the current Government would need to resign or be overthrown by the Parliament. There is also the purely theoretical possibility, not mentioned in any law, of Parliament resigning en masse, which is highly unlikely.
Ruling Democratic Liberal Party vice-president Sever Voinescu said that when it comes to change, people think about names, but names don’t solve problems.
“It is not by replacing Ionescu with Popescu that problems are solved, it is about changing how you do politics.”
This is in fact what some of those who are taking to the streets are demanding.
But what this means concretely is not yet well defined. People’s demands continue to be wide ranging – pensions and wages are small, corruption is widespread, Rosia Montana is not a good project and so on. The debate needs to focus around the major points of the political crisis.
One needs to first of all clearly define what the protesters want. Of course they shout “Down with Basescu,” “Down with the Government.” But then what?
(English version by Daniela Stoican)