Political Fracture

Although 60 percent of Romanians want an electoral system based on nominal vote, as opposed to the 14 percent who prefer the existing system of voting for lists of candidates (this category of voters diminished substantially from 29 percent in June 2002 to 14 percent in November 2003, according to The Public Opinion Barometer of The Open Society Foundation) and, although the voters' confidence in Parliament and political parties has been in a constant downward trend (from 36 percent in November 2001 to 14 percent in November 2003 as far as Parliament is concerned and from 16 percent to eight percent in the same interval as far as confidence in political parties goes), most of the members of the joint Committee of The Chamber of Deputies and The Senate appointed to elaborate draft electoral laws (also referred to as The Electoral Committee) on Wednesday, February 4th, denied all motions for substantial changes to the current electoral legislation. Individual or group interests (parliamentary groups and/or other kinds of groups) triumphed once more over the dominant state of mind among the general public and, paradoxically, the official explanation for the denial of the respective motions was that an electoral system based on a nominal vote would make Parliament less representative of the ge-ne-ral public. Amazingly, a Parliament that is less and less representative of its constituents is worried that people might start voting for people instead of lists and the-re-fore elect a Parliament that is har-dly representative of the people!

The Electoral Committee was appointed on June 26th, 2003 and scheduled to present its report in end-September 2003. As the Committee did nothing, the deadline was extended to the end of November. Eventually, the Committee actually started doing something in December... Viorel Hrebenciuc's appointment as chairman of this Committee indicates that the ruling party (and other "parties' I might add) are very keen on preparing a plan B to use in the event that the "right' electoral system was to be discarded. The very regulations governing the Committee provided the much desired way out: the parties represented on the Committee could vote for a given electoral system or another, but, amazingly, without being able to change anything. By stipulating that, on matters of principle (the kind of electoral system, the number of rounds for the mayoral elections and so on and so forth) decisions were to be made by a two-thirds majority, whereas, on technical matters, an absolute majority of 50+ percent would decide, the Committee's regulations created the perfect conditions for a "democratic' denial of democratic reform of the electoral system. Given that the Committee comprises six representatives of The Social Democrat Party (P.S.D.), two of The Democrat Party (P.D.), two of The National Liberal Party (P.N.L.), two of The Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (U.D.M.R.), four of The Greater Romania Party (P.R.M.) and one of the national minorities, two thirds means 12 votes out of 17 votes in total. The fact that P.R.M. and U.D.M.R. joined forces against the nominal vote system - a curious occurrence, considering the grudge between them - is easily understood if typically politician-like calculations are taken into account: both of them would lose a great deal of votes if the nominal vote kicks in, but have nothing to lose if they vote against it. Moreover, the representative of the national minorities other than Hungarians took sides with P.R.M. and U.D.M.R. and so it became impossible for those supporting the nominal vote system to assemble a two-thirds majority. The vote that the Committee took on February 4th was a mere formality. P.S.D. voted in favor of their own idea - two rounds of elections - which they had made public in December 2003 to counteract the idea put forward by the D.A. alliance - a mixed, nominal vote system. Because of these particular circumstances, P.S.D. ended up voting in favor of the nominal vote system, just as P.N.L. and P.D. did. However, back at the end of December, the chairman of the Committee asked the members to reconsider their stands and contemplate proportional, list-based vote systems, in tune with European trends (despite the fact that the latest trend in European electoral systems is the Italian electoral reform made by introducing a mixed system).

The huge gap separating Romanian politicians from the people is therefore growing even deeper with chances of conciliation fading by the day. There is no communication between the two Romanias - the Romania of politicians remote-controlled by hidden puppeteers, politicians obsessed with poll readings, on the one hand, and the Romania of people striving to deal with daily problems, but also waiting, moderately optimistic, for a better life. The real "sicklings" of the Romanian society, the political parties, are refusing to accept the doctor's verdict hoping that refusal will prolong their life and eventually help them adapt.

For the past 14 years, the political parties' internal reform (their democratization) and their metamorphosis into parties that actually represent their constituents has made little progress, while the political environment, built on this frail foundation of weak parties dominated by one master-party, leaves little room for hope. Obstinately refusing to accept the citizens' input in the decision-making process, monopolizing the right to rule and pretending to listen to their constituents, the political par-ties in Romania have created a world of their own, sterilized of any democratic "contamination' with public interests. Holders of the absolute, yet negotiable, truth (po-ured into public ears in the form of "national interests'), the political parties are only interested in preserving the current context, the only context that is favorable to them. Reformists are therefore isolated within their own parties ruled by oligarchs. To many Romanian politicians, democracy is not a state of mind based on the values of equality, or even a set of rules on the relationship between "public' and "private' but a philosophy, therefore an abstraction. Under these circumstances, it is no wonder that, while European criticism of corruption, political cronyism and the crisis of democracy in Romania is growing harsher, the Romanian politicians' reaction is based on the theory that everyone is conspiring against Romanian interests.