Cav's Place

If I don’t write this now, I’ll end up being completely overwhelmed by the number of issues and articles I need to mention and follow, because there are starting to be too many things going on to properly keep track of, and hardly any of them are any good. That said, don’t expect this post to be an actual overview of the current situation on the Romanian political scene, seeing as you can keep track of that reasonably well through the articles published in the foreign media. For example, you have the one published earlier this week by BBC, but also opinion pieces published last week by The New York Times or Der Spiegel, to name a few. You can also find all you need about the recent meeting between our prime minister, Victor Ponta, and the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, including the expected conflicting statements released afterwards, when Ponta promised that the European concerns will be quickly addressed while interim president Crin Antonescu retaliated rather violently.
What this post does contain are my current opinions about the situation and our potential future, which you will find are largely in line with those I had regarding the battle between Traian Basescu and PSD and PNL when he was first suspended, in 2007, and also during the 2009 presidential elections, both before the first round and after the second. As you can see from those posts, my support for Basescu largely stemmed from the fact that he was, in my view, the only one on the Romanian political scene with the determination, skill and resources to dismantle the system created by PSD, and that’s very important because I certainly see PSD as the greater evil. Admittedly, my opinion of him has deteriorated noticeably after he returned to office as a result of the 2007 referendum, and certainly even more so after he won the 2009 elections, but it’s still less terrible than the one I have about PSD, if not necessarily also about Victor Ponta personally, or about Crin Antonescu, if not necessarily about PNL as a whole.

To outline my current stance, I could start by mentioning that, after Basescu was officially announced as the winner of the 2009 elections, I went back to Remus Cernea’s Facebook page, which I had left between the two rounds in protest of his support for Mircea Geoana, and said that, now that we are safe from the greater evil, we need to roll up our sleeves and get to blocking the lesser one in order to pave the way towards the possibility of a positive vote at the next elections, because there’s a lot of work to do when it comes to that as well. That should make it clear that, at least for the past few years, I haven’t actually been supporting Basescu, but merely wishing to do what must be done to dismantle a terribly rotten and very deeply entrenched system. I didn’t miss the fact that he was creating his own rotten system to replace the old one but, as the current events prove beyond all doubt, this new system is far less entrenched and therefore easier to remove, which would have allowed candidates that I could actually support for the right reasons to waste only a part of their term in order to dismantle it, eventually reaching a point where they’d finally be able to do something actually good for the country.
However, what we’re seeing now is evidence of just how deeply entrenched PSD’s system is, considering how quickly and how efficiently it sprung back into action after being more or less under siege for all these years. In a way, you can say that the difference is merely a matter of speed, seeing as what USL is doing now may well be very similar to what Basescu and PDL have tried to do all these years, but while they struggled for so long and still haven’t managed to properly entrench themselves, the new USL government, which is clearly led by PSD, has accomplished nearly everything in a matter of mere weeks! That’s what’s truly frightening and why Basescu must keep his position, if only to still have someone capable of putting some hurdles in USL’s march towards full and unopposed control of the country.

I do want to mention, however, that at this time I’m not completely against Victor Ponta having a role in the future of the country. I’m certainly against Crin Antonescu, that poor excuse of a man has no way to redeem himself in my eyes anymore, but I’m still willing to consider the possibility that Ponta is trying to do some good things. The problem is that, even if he may have some good intentions, he’s constrained by the “old guard” of PSD, which he’s either unable or unwilling to remove. That said, at the moment I wouldn’t reject a project for the future of Romania which might include him, but only if he’ll leave PSD and vow to never again work with those who have masterminded this rotten system that has taken over the country in 1990 and still holds it firmly in its grasp. In addition, he shouldn’t have a leadership position right away, but instead be monitored for some time in order for others to be able to guarantee that he is keeping his word, only allowing him back at the top if time will prove this sufficiently well.

Otherwise, I’m saddened that there are no good alternatives making their presence known, no matter how weakly, on the political scene, but even more saddened that there are so few protesters who still protest against the entire political class. Worse, even they only protest against everyone and don’t offer any solutions, don’t try to create a coherent new system, even if only on paper, in order to have some clear and positive demands to put forward. I mean, I can certainly admire these few who, despite all hardship, keep on protesting against all of them, but I find it very difficult to actually support them when most of the time it seems that the only difference between them and the larger mass of protesters, and also between them and Crin Antonescu or Remus Cernea, for example, is that they say “we must first get rid of all of them and then we’ll figure something out” instead of just “we must first get rid of Basescu and then we’ll figure something out”. When asked for actual solutions, the most likely reply is that they’re not protesting because they have them, but because they want to be allowed to search for them fairly, which is very disheartening when you consider that they’ve been at it for a good six months! You’d think that, if they were capable of coming up with something, they’d have done so already…
As such, at this moment I’m quite at a loss to say what I’m still hoping for. In 2009, as I said, I was hoping that Basescu and PDL would manage to finally dismantle the system created by PSD and then that one of the alternatives that seemed to be trying to make their way onto the political scene at the time would become stronger by the next elections and start having an impact, at least in the sense of holding the crucial swing votes. However, Basescu and PDL have obviously failed to dismantle that system, said alternatives have either failed to get past the concept stage or, in the case of Remus Cernea and the Greens’ Movement, have actually sided with the enemy by fully and officially allying themselves with USL, and the lack of any grassroots movements that actually have some solutions and positive proposals to put forward makes it quite obvious that nothing else worth supporting is about to appear either…

I guess that at this point the only thing I can realistically wish for is a deadlock. Of course, in itself that’s not desirable, especially when the overall situation is so tricky and the lack of a quick reaction may mean disaster, but it would at least serve to block USL from gaining full control and offer some more time for somebody worth supporting to finally appear. If and when that will happen, I’ll want all of them out of office right away, but until it does, I can only vote a clear “no” at the referendum, seeing as Basescu is still the only one who may have a chance of at least slowing down USL somewhat…
Then again, seeing as most of the population has so much hate for Basescu that they’re blind to what USL is doing and also seem to forget what PSD did in the past, it would appear that the only realistic chance for Basescu to return to office would be for a low turnout to make the referendum invalid, meaning that voting “no” would be detrimental to my cause, because I’d be helping USL reach the required 50%. However, not voting would go against my principles, and I’m not about to do that. I’ll do whatever I can to fight against PSD, but going against my principles is not something I can do.