It is moral to state aloud what you are, it is moral to be consistent in affirming your own beliefs, it is moral to think in the long run, it is moral to affirm your own identity. It is moral to have the courage to say you are different from the others, even if the others represent, for the time being, the majority.The government coalition is terrified. The protests which will take place today in Bucharest, and which will gather around 80,000 people according to their organizers, are described by the government as an attempt against the security of the state, a coup d’état or a new “mineriad” (a reminder of the coal miners’ violent descent on Bucharest in the early 1990’s). The ministers seethe against the “political manipulation” of the protests, accusing the union members of being opposition party members and wishing they had the legal means of quashing these protests. More to this point, the Interior Minister has even introduced a state of emergency in the entire country just to prevent the police officers to strike and join the protests in Bucharest, grossly disregarding their constitutional right to dissent. If one listens to the government officials, one would have the impression that Romania is on the verge of a political apocalypse.
However, if we look at this objectively, there is really nothing out of the ordinary. True, the unions’ protest is made to coincide with a vote of no-confidence, putting the poor members of government under siege both from the MP’s and from the unions. The protests and the motion of no confidence were prompted by the unpopular policies promoted by this government, and if the Boc government really believed in the necessity of these policies they would try to justify and defend them, rather than pathetically accuse their political opponents of mischief.
But if there is one thing the Boc government is more afraid, it is the betrayal of their MP’s. On paper, the coalition looks solid: the political partners (UDMR, UNPR and the Ethnic Minorities’ group) have been pacified with political concessions. However, since the government’s majority was formed by a series of individual defections from the opposition parties, the government is afraid the same thing might happen to them. In order to prevent this, the coalition parties have decided to abstain from voting and keep the parliamentarians in their seats, threatening all those who refuse to play their zombie part with exclusion from the party. Needless to say, if the plan succeeds, Romania will reach a new first in the democratic world: an elected government surviving a confidence vote without any MP’s voting in its favour!
This ‘Romanian Horror Picture Show’ takes place in a European Union member country led, theoretically, by a democratically elected government. A simple comparison between the events happening in Romania today with the much bigger protests that took place in France few weeks ago and their respective government reactions, gives a clear picture of the political crisis and democratic regression brought upon Romania by the Boc government (in its various incarnations). It is time that Romania’s Civil Society took action to protect Romania’s democratic values and ensure political responsibility from the elected officials.
Laurenţiu Luca
„The price of freedom is eternal vigilance” (Thomas Jefferson)
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The government coalition is terrified. The protests which will take place today in Bucharest, and which will gather around 80,000 people according to their organizers, are described by the government ...
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