25/02/2011

Parliamentary election day. Ireland has gone through a dramatic period of time. The Fianna Fail government negotiated (or accepted, depends who you talk to) an EU/IMF bailout which is generally considered as a bad deal among the Irish. Fianna Fail, one of the two major political parties, has held power for the last 14 years, historically opposed to the signature of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The main counterpart to Fianna Fail is Fine Gael, the party which was in favour of the agreement with the UK. This historical distinction is deeply rooted into voting patterns of the Irish people which from the first glance decide upon the two choices. However, this time it seems to be different. Labour might be an important factor in the formation of the future government with Fine Gael. The public opinion polls predict a major victory for Fine Gael, but there are two possible scenarios; Either Fine Gael can govern on its own or in a coalition with Labour. Having in mind that Fine Gael policies can be simplistically labelled as ‘rightist’, the single government might even be more conservative than the Fianna Fail one. On the other hand, a coalition with Labour could provide a certain balance as opposed to the rigorous policies of Fine Gael. At this point, it is hard to predict the result…

One of the most interesting players of this elections is Sinn Fein which leans more towards the left, but carries the baggage of political association with the IRA. The party leader, Gerry Adams, for the first time tries to get a seat in the Irish Dail. Adams, originally from the North, in this way tries to enter to the republican political arena. However, during the campaign it became pretty obvious that he is not familiar with the political reality in the Republic.

I count on a good success of the United Left Alliance which is a newly emerged political platform constituted of several left wing parties. The Socialist Party of Joe Higgins is one of them and Joe (who btw, stays in my memory as one of the politicians who was very visible opposing the Lisbon Treaty) hopes for a comeback in national politics after his experience as an MEP in the European Parliament.

Tomorrow is a counting day. Votes are distributed according to single transferable vote system which seems to be great fun. The voters give a preference to their candidates by numbering them. In this regard, the number 1 candidate is their first preference, but if he reaches the quota the remaining votes go to the candidate number 2. The same happens if a candidate is eliminated from the game; his votes go to the next candidate which was preferred by the voters. It basically looks a bit like a more complicated Eurovision song contest.

I’ll try to catch “the counting spirit” tomorrow in the Galway’s base: Leisure land. So far 70% of the people voted. What a great result, my compliments to the Irish voters!

26/02.2011

Leisure land, Galway City

It is amazing, but people can actually participate in the whole counting process. Even better, people do participate and there is a certain excitement in the air. I stroll around the tables and check how people make their decisions. Interesting, it seems some of them have no political orientation. Fianna Fail supporters in general do not seem to like to support the candidates who are not associated with the party, so after my observation: no votes for “the others” J. It seems that the major battle will be for the 5th seat. I count on Catherine Connolly, non compromised Galway city councillor. However, there is a long night ahead before having the final results.

The candidates, their canvassers and family members are waiting and talking to people. The media is like a big brother: tracing every little detail. In some corners it is possible to notice some disappointment, the Greens seem to be one of the major losers of this year’s game. Going into bed with Fianna Fail did not particularly help them, but I hope for their comeback. There is need for green policies, not only in the Irish context but also in a global context…

28/02/2011

The Galway West constituency still has not finished with the counting. Several candidates on different occasions requested a total recount. That means that approximately 57.000 votes have to be re-examined again and again. However, the main two names are known: Nolan Derek, the Labour candidate, 28 years old and the grandson of famous de Valera Eamon O’cuiv, a very experienced politician of Fianna Fail are elected. As predicted, the main problems are with the 5th post. This can be see as the main battle of this elections in Galway West. It is very hard to predict about the transfer of the remaining votes. I still count on Catherine. As mentioned before, she is a very uncompromising politician. In the past she was associated with Labour but decided to be independent after a dispute with the party leaders. I do see both Labour and Catherine in the Dail. This is a moment when different opinions can only positively contribute to the future of the country.

At this point, it is also known that there is most probably a coalition between Fine Gael and Labour.

6/03/2011

The Irish Times has just published the news that Fine Gael and Labour reached the agreement to form a coalition. In the next days we will know what this de facto means. Catherine, in the Galway West constituency, lost the 5th seat because of 17 votes. In any case, the election were kind of historical. People did not choose their candidates according to Fianna Fail – Fine Gael lines but instead gave other opinions and political visions a fair chance.

I also have a positive take on the political campaigns. There was no presence of xenophobic voices even though the country faces a very difficult economic situation. Furthermore, the candidates were mostly very respectful to each other and there were no major populist elements in their campaigns or statements. That’s a part I definitely miss in other European countries. The future developments are a mystery, but that was definitely a good start for Irish politics.

VoteWatch.eu, announced already a while ago, was finally launched today. It is quite a complex tool, which analyses various aspects of the parliamentary activity, from the MEPs attendance and number of reports drafted, to the political groups cohesion rates and voting coalitions. Beyond the statistical gimmicks (limited to the quantitative aspects), VoteWatch.eu also presents the content of the MEPs’ activities: on their profiles there are direct links to the reports drafted, the amendments written, the interventions in plenary, etc. Moreover, according to these criteria, you can compare, with a click, the respective MEP with all the others. The tool is, undoubtedly, useful for researchers and journalists with an interst in the EU and with a basic understanding of how the institutions work. However, it might prove to be a bit too complex for the normal citizens who want to find out what their MEPs are doing.

VoteWatch is a non profit project but it is sponsored by the Open Society Institute, Burson-Marsteller and ElectionMall.com (more to come apparently!) and developed by a team of experts including Sara Hagemann (EPC), Doru Frantescu (QVORUM), Simon Hix (LSE) and Abdul G. Noury (ULB).

Tony Barber writes on his Brussels Blog that the votewatch.eu will be expanded “later this year or early in 2010 (…) to include coverage of votes in the EU’s Council of Ministers”. And that is indeed long overdue and will defintely be a major step towards more transparency in the EU!

After creating a special page on the EP portal, dedicated to the elections, this week a new project was launched. This time, the target group is very well delimited- it is the “MTV generation”. And yes, believe it or not, the European Commission teamed up with MTV on a campaign entitled “Can You Hear Me Europe”, aiming to engage young people to express their views on Europe. MTV has been running campaigns on political and social issues in the US and also on the national level, in various countries. The first one on a European level, this initiative promises to be a channel by means of which European youth can get their thoughts and ideas on Europe and the EU across. The campaign brings together “traditional” media – MTV- with some of the biggest and most popular social networks (such as Facebook and Twitter), with the purpose of opening up the debate to young voters, by making, at the same time, the European arena more appealing to them, although it remains to be seen whether turnout icreases with this campaign.  In other words, the European Commission, in its continuous drive towards communicating the EU better, went a step further and brought the EU debate, officially, in the virtual space used by young people in their every day life. It is not a completely new thing, as many Commissioners and MEPs have already established their presence in the blogosphere and, most recently, on Twitter; nevertheless, the “Can You Hear Me Europe” campaign shows a more focused effort, addressing a specific target group in the context of a specific event: the EP elections. As we all know, the more targeted a communication effort is, the better the results, so we’ll definitely keep an eye on the developments.

Alongside this specific campaign, it is interesting to observe and compare the multitude of (mostly) internet-based initiatives linked to the EP elections in June. While not directly initiated (but in some cases and to some extent funded) by the EU, they involve Universities or academics, “think tanks”, consultancies and journalists. The unifying point is that they all aim, on the one hand, at informing an raising awareness about the importance of the EP and of the elections and, on the other hand, at engaging people to vote. Here are some of the prominent examples:

• on the more academic side: Predict09.eu, launched this week, is a statistical tool devised by three leading political scientists, to predict the outcome of the EP elections in June 2009; EU Profiler, a project led by the  European University Institute in Florence to be launched (rather late) at the end of April, is meant to help people position themselves from a political perspective, which would arguably facilitate their choice in the elections.
• on the more journalistic side: the Th!ink About It competition, whereby the European Journalism Centre (EJC) engaged bloggers from the 27 Member States in a debate on the EP elections, and EUdebate2009, a multilingual website launched by cafebabel.com, giving the chance to different actors, from citizens and civil society organisations to political parties and candidates, to have their say.

The trend shown by these developments is undoubtedly a positive one. However, one cannot help noticing that all these campaigns, even though mostly involving grassroots elements, are initiated, designed and/or funded at the EU level.  And even though they have indeed the potential to develop a so-much-sought-for European public sphere, it is questionable how efficient they will be without real ownership at the national and local level. Moreover, what is needed is a public debate on the EU that will continue also after the EP elections.

Will the “normal citizen” be swept away by the fever of the first “online elections”, like in the US, or will these initiatives remain barely the online face of what is being perceived as EU propaganda?

On April 8 2009, people knew that the evening before it was said that the protests will continue and that meeting hour was 10 AM in PMAN (the National Square, in front of the Government building). That morning I was crossing the Stefan cel Mare boulevard, through the National Square and by the Government building. The “Scut” forces were already there around the building. I was following www.unimedia.info and www.curaj.net where events were posted almost every hour about what was going on. At lunch time we went to PMAN to see for ourselves what was going on. It was around 1,000 or maybe 2,000 people that were standing in the sun, cheering same old “Down with the communists!” but for people passing by it was not clear what was the message of the people speaking in the megaphone, the leader was also not clearly identified.

But I randomly ran into some students that were yesterday protesting in front of the parliament and who were willing to share their story. According to them, they were peacefully protesting in front of the Parliament, but mainly directed to the Presidency (as in facing the Presidency) when at one point, around maybe 200 “Scut” forces got out of the Parliament building through the front door and started marching towards the crowd, beating young people with their bats while these were running away. At a certain moment some from the crowd started screaming “look it’s only a couple of them, but it’s more of us, let’s press them!” And then it all started and from the crowd rocks started to fly towards the policemen.
After talking to them we went to see what is going on in front of the Presidency – it was guarded by same “Scut” forces, while people were cleaning the mess left from the previous day. In front of the Parliament was no one, and people were sitting around on the grass as if they were on a Sunday picnic, eating popcorn, drinking water/juice/cola/fanta/sprite and talking (I overheard some regular conversations – about the nice weather, about some boyfriend/girlfriend problems, personal financial issues etc.).

Soon after that the Presidency have been occupied, the protesters entered into the building, got on the roof and on the 1st level balcony and entered the cabinet of the Mr. Vladimir Voronin, the President of the Republic of Moldova and leader of the Communist Party. While entering the building the crowd was cheering “Oleg and Vova have stolen our Moldova” (Oleg as referring to the businessman Oleg Voronin the President’s son and Vova as referring to the President himself). The crowd got euphoric when they got pictures of the President and set them on fire. They also got out the flag of Republic of Moldova from the president’s office and got it down to the crowd.

On the other part of the street the protesters entered the Parliament building and a new wave of euphoria started when they got out furniture and equipment out of the building and set it on fire while pouring cognac into the fire from a bottle of cognac that somebody found in one of the cabinets of the Parliament. Then, they took out the door of the Presidency building and solemnly transported it above their heads, crossing the street, into the fire in front of the Parliament. See the photo stream here.

The situation was confusing, one could not realize what was really going on, and no leader of the groups  which were devastating both buildings could be identified. And it did not matter to them when the leaders from the opposition parties (Vlad Filat, Liberal Democratic Party or Dorin Chirtoaca, Liberal Party) were coming in front of them and asking them to abandon the rocks and stop the violent behavior and go back to the National Square (PNAM) in order to protest peacefully. It was at this moment when police forces directed the water jets into the crowd and Vlad Filat got under it and youth were not moving a centimeter towards PNAM.

I tried talking to some of the people out there on the streets protesting. My attention got some old people that were supporting the youth saying “my dear, it was about time that the communists get what they deserve”. Behind me an old man was saying to a young protester: “I understand and support your cause, but make sure that you (as in the youth) do not get hurt”. In this video you can see old people saying that “a long time ago this should have been done, they (the communists) have destroyed our churches, so let it burn so no trace of communist can be found, they have destroyed everything, our culture, they sent us to Siberia, it’s time they are sent to Siberia! I believe that there was electoral fraud, they went to villages and fooled people around” (this is a short translation of the video).

Asking around why are they here and what do they think is going on, I got the following answers: “I did not vote for the communists, neither did my friends nor my parents, so I stand here to say “NO!” to communists”, “I believe that the elections were rigged, I cannot believe that again, 3 times in a row communists get a majority of votes. I refuse to believe that!” and others told me similar opinions. When I was asking if it was the right way to destroy the buildings and get violent, some said that “it was about time”, “after the first rock that flew about my head I knew there is no turning back”. Most of the young people I talked to said that they are against the acts of vandalism that this protest turned into, but that they did not want the communists to rejoice in their so-called wining of election.

On the other side, on PNAM, people were peacefully protesting, saying “no” to acts of vandalism, calling for the protesters in front of the Parliament and the Presidency to join them in PNAM. At a certain point a big number of people were leaving the site of the Presidency and the Parliament and moving towards PNAM (it was around 4 PM when the reporter from “Vocea Basarabiei” was reporting this movement). In the meantime, the protesters have anchored on the Presidency the EU flag and on the first level balcony the Romanian flag.

Leaving the office to return to downtown my last update was that the leaders of the opposition went to negotiate with the President of Moldova, the Speaker of the Parliament and the Prime Minister. The opposition was there to demand a recount of the votes, but from the videos that we later saw when we got home was that the opposition was mostly explaining to the President that they had nothing to do with the violent acts and that they want that the accusation that they are in fact the organizers should be officially dropped. The citizens could not see a strong opposition demanding what it wants.

It was around 8 PM when almost all protesters were in PNAM, in front of the Government building, and only some of them were still vandalizing the 2 assaulted buildings. Until almost 10 PM people were cheering in PNAM and continued protests and were raising their hands when asked for voting for a civic coalition built only by non-governmental representatives and no political parties. It was around this hour that Vlad Filat, the president of Liberal Democrat Party addressed the crowd in PNAM saying that: “The Communists want to focus on the violent actions and move away from the fact that elections were rigged.” He also underlined that the police that was in a small number at the protest could not assure the public order. Dorin Chirtoaca, vice-president of the Liberal Party said that there were provocateurs among the young people that were first to throw with stones and made that a peaceful action turn violent. An interesting image that appeared today was the on the top of the building of the Parliament, where 2 young men were waving the EU flag, when zooming the picture, behind them 2 police officers were standing calmly watching this. The question is – were they protesting?

People that came downtown, on April 7th 2009 wanted one thing – a change, apparently nobody expected such a turn-out. So, who’s to blame and who’s behind all of this? Later after 6 PM a lot of the protesters had this question in their minds. No one knew what’s going on and no one had an answer. “For the moment it is a little victory” some of the protesters standing beside me in PNAM were commenting.

So far, the facts are that: we had no internet connection for several good hours, people from other countries could not visited sites hosted in Moldova and also Moldovan internet users did not have access to them. People in the countryside, that have access only to the national TV station TVM 1 were not informed about the events from Chisinau, it was only at 5.30 PM that the national television started covering the subject showing some people expressing themselves against the protests, but not talking to protesters to find out what they think, thus trying to manipulate public opinion. Moreover, access to Chisinau was limited, starting with 11 AM on April 7th, buses and cars were stopped, and people were questioned and searched. Most buses with students were sent back from where they were coming.  Mostly young students protested in their cities (in Ungheni and in Balti around 2000 gathered downtown), but the entries into the country at the Romanian border were impossible to cross for Moldovan students who were coming to support the protesters.

Another thing is that all protesters from PNAM went home until 1AM, on April 8th already, so did the last cameras and media representatives. Still some drunk people still stayed there, trying to make the cars go another way, trying to irritate the police force that was guarding the building of the Government and was behaving irrational due to the influence of alcohol. It was a couple minutes after 1 AM that several gun shots were heard in PNAM and people were running away. A witness of this told me that the police fired several shots in the air, people started running in different directions, and then police arrested several of them. Nobody knows so far what happened to them.

The question is: what will be the consequences?

The population in Chisinau, the capital of Republic of Moldova doesn’t recognize the results of the elections  in which the communists won. They believe the elections were rigged.
The protest continued today, April 7, from 10 AM and the youth are not willing to give up. People were coming to the National Square mainly with the same cheers as yesterday, but today the crowd was counting around 50,000 people. At some point, the crowd split in 2 – one part stayed in the National Square in front of the Government and the other part went to the Presidency and the Parliament. Around 11 AM, the only radio that could be accessed (“Vocea Basarabiei” ) was transmitting news from the the events  and it was constantly informing about the turn of the events.

The youth was peacefully protesting in front of the police and did not bolster to violent acts. It was at 11.05 AM, that the reporter was informing that Petru Corduneanu, the police commissioner, had hit a young man and tried to block the journalists. It was only later, after the police forces tried to intimidate the protesters that they started throwing rocks at them  screaming “We are not leaving!” Talking to some of the protesters from the first lines I found out that the armed forces “Scut” formed a human line from the Parliament to the Presidency (both of the buildings are situated on the Stefan cel Mare boulevard and are facing one another) and were intimidating the protesters by advancing on to them and beating with their bats in the bucklers. At first the crowds were in retreat. One person told me that at some point, when the police was approaching, the protesting girl next to him accidentally fell down and the policemen started beating her with their bats and some boys defeated her and got her back into the crowd. This was the hot moment when the first line of protesters sat down on the stairs in front of the Presidency screaming “We are not leaving!”, “Whom are you defending?” The “Scut” forces kept on advancing and this is when the protesters from the standing crowd started throwing rocks at them. Now, the crowd started advancing…

After this point it is difficult to describe what was happening, one has actually have to be there and live it. Parts of the action can be viewed here:

In the background of this video you can hear the crowd screaming “Thieves!”, “Demission!”, “Down with the communists!”

Here the crowd screams “One-two, communists to the garbage!”, “Shame on you!”, “Down with the communists!”

It was after this altercations that people in the offices that were trying to access different online media sources had really slow connection or could not access the web pages at all. Later on we understood that internet connections were down, local television did not broadcast and the national public television was broadcasting relaxation shows. Also, after 11.30 AM we could not reach protesters from the Square via their cell phones.

It was 1 PM when the windows of the Presidency building were all broken; up to the 3d floor and protesters were trying to enter the building, on the other side of the street the protesters were destroying the windows of the Parliament and one could see smoke coming out from inside the building. Now the protesters were screaming “Revolution”, “We are not giving up!”, “Down with communism!” and one could tell that they were not willing to give up.

It was during my lunch break that I was observing how the youth fought the jets of water coming from both – the Parliament and the Presidency and they clapped and laughed and cheered when the police special forces on barricades in both buildings ran out of water resources. This was the moment when the crowd got the feeling of wining over the police forces in front of the Presidency and they offered to them to get out of the building, the protesters even formed a free pass so that they could freely go out.

At this point, just across the street we heard a strong noise as if something exploded. From the building of the Parliament, the police forces were throwing some sort of devices that made a shattering noise and sprayed tear gas on the protesters which made it difficult for them to breathe and tears would come out of their eyes. Several of them got injured (later on this evening I saw an interview with one of the protester saying that at first he had no clue what has happened as after the big “BANG” he could not clearly hear and afterward someone told him to look at his legs. Apparently the device fell right next to him, torn his jeans apart and his legs from the knees down were in blood. The young man said that at first he could not feel pain and could not understand what was going on due to the noise in his head).

A second “bang” was heard and the protesters in front of the Parliament started running away. Around a minute later when the crowd understood that no one was shooting at them and it was no grenade, they  slowly came back while the crowd in front of the Presidency was supporting them shouting “Come back!”, “Don’t give up!” The protesters came back and it was only several hours later that we could hear those “Bangs!” already familiar to the crowd that did not scare them at all.
Standing next to the broken windows and by the broken door of the Presidency the crowd was shouting “You also have kids!”, “Don’t steal our future!”. Even through some of the police forces went out through the formed corridor, most of them stepped out through some back door in the Presidency and the protesters invaded the building, getting out furniture, equipment, documents, reports and burning them.

For a photo stream from the spot, please visit the Unimedia.

To be continued…

On April 6, at 6 pm, the second day after the Parliamentary elections, when the counting of almost 98% of the votes was indicating that the communist have won again (obtaining almost 50% and 61 seats in the Parliament out of the total of 101), young people gathered at the monument of Stefan cel Mare (Stephen the Great) from the National Square in the Republic of Moldova. Each one of them was holding a candle in his hand that was lightened in order to declare this day the National Mourning Day.

Most of the people found out about this initiative through different internet channels – blogs, forums and especially facebook. People got surprised and enthusiastic to see that more than thousand of participants came at first and in the next hour there were already 10,000 of them. After lighting candles at the monument of the national historic leader of all Moldovan people, young people went to the Parliament shouting “Down with the communists!”, “Better dead then communist!”, “I refuse, I resist! I am anti-communist!”, “Freedom!”, “Down with the censorship!”, “We want repeated voting!” Later on, the leaders of the opposition parties adhered to the cause of the protesters. From 6 pm till around 10 pm the long line of 10,000 people have stopped by all the important points: the Presidency, that faces the Parliament of the Republic, the Government and the Electoral Central Commission – all of this abide to the communist government and consider themselves democratic, open to the public institutions. On Monday the protest went on really peacefully and people were only cheering and singing, protesting against the communists that are ruling.

Today, there was a press conference of the organizers that explained that they did not expect so many people to gather, but apparently the cause was of great importance to them and that the electoral process has not been free and fair and that the youth only wanted their voice to be heard. Besides this, the organizers of the flashmob from April 6, also were unsatisfied that the opposition did not mobilize the youth before elections, but were concerned with the dividing the power between them. And the idea behind this protest is to create a big citizen coalition.

To be continued…

Moreover, this seems to constitute the main reason behind the “war of candidates” that is taking place within the main Romanian parties. A good enough reason, it seems, to give up ambitions for a career at the national level and to stay away from the spicy, circus-like political arena in Bucharest for a while. Interesting to note that in the rush of signing up for candidacy, most of the politicians forget to consider, or completely ignore the final goal and what it entails: becoming a member of the European Parliament. There is no substantial debate, one can hardly hear about proposed programmes and ideas; the motivation seems to remain on a superficial level, of a rather material nature, and this is easily visible for an insider as well as an outside observer.

Still, such a great competition should not be in itself something bad, quite on the contrary. With or without the right motivation, it is quite a good sign that Romanian politicians start getting interested in politics at the EU level. Arguably, the parties should organise a very thorough selection procedure to make sure the best candidates get on the eligible places of the lists. Well, here again, Romanian politics style kicks in. No, there is no democratic way of choosing the candidates and determining their place on the list.

Every party seems to have an “inner mechanism” for that purpose and, come to think of it, this practice is pretty much in line with the Brussels job market: any party member can send in the CV, but in the end, a “jury” formed by party leaders gets to choose the top candidates, and, guess what, no transparency or accountability can be traced throughout the process.

This is why it is very likely that we will end up with MEPs such as Elena Basescu (picture), the daughter of President Traian Basescu (a 28 years old model who became stagiaire in the European Parliament, for one of the Romanian MEPs), or the Presidential advisor and the Government’s spokesperson. The opposition (PNL) also have a tough decion to make, since lots of high ranking and ambitios members were left with their careers jeopardised by the failure in the 2008 parliamentary elections. Furthermore, to complete the surreal picture, MEPs who have been quite active in Brussels in their current mandate (Corina Cretu, Adrian Severin), are in danger of not being offered an eligible place because they are not (always) following the mainstream position of their party (PSD).

Three worrying thoughts:

1. the material incentive proves to be stronger than any political motivation to candidate for an MEP mandate; even worse: in the presence of the former, no one even bothers anymore to invent the latter;

2. The system used to select the candidates is far from being democratic and transparent; even worse: I suspect no one even bothers to present it as such;

3. The European Parliament is not present in the Romanian media in the context of substantial debates and analyses; even worse: it is now further discredited by being linked to names that have nothing to do with serious politics. And no one even bothers to notice that.

Estragon: I can’t go on like this.
Vladimir: That’s what you think.
Estragon: If we parted? It might be better for us.

The central right SDS was the main force of the political scene after the elections in 2004, despite being in a coalition with the NSi (New Slovenia), SLS (Slovenian People’s Party) and Desus (Democratic Party of Pensioners of Slovenia). Four years later, the NSi did not manage to get into parliament (the party gathered only 3,40 % of the electoral votes), while the SLS lost voters and struggles with an internal crisis. In this perspective the shift from the right to the left (but be careful, always seen from the “centre”) seems to be reasonable.

SD, the party which is led by the new prime minister and former MEP Borut Pahor, formed a coalition with two other parties: LDS (Liberal Democrats of Slovenia) and ZARES (made up by deputies who in 2007 left LDS).

However, the coalition of the so called “trojček” (triplet) was agreed before the elections and thus the three parties campaigned with the promise to form a coalition government. In this sense, the votes of SD, ZARES and LDS were votes for a “liberal, more left – center” coalition that altogether got 45,03 % of the votes.

Based on this short analysis it is possible to conclude that people expressed their wish for change (popular theme these days…) and the expectations of “different politics” can be seen as the mandate of the new government.

Vladimir: Well? Shall we go?
Estragon: Yes, let’s go. (They do not move)

Last week the prime minister was finally appointed and also negotiations about the cabinet seem to be coming to an end. The coalition which will be made up of the “triplet” and DESUS, has already promised “changes”. The central aim is to overcome simple political polarization between “us” and “them” and appoint personnel according to professional capabilities. Another improvement can be seen in the inclusion of women in the new government. At the moment, five women and seven non-party members have been appointed to ministerial positions. The new government also promises more transparency and less interference into the public sector, especially regarding state owned companies. Their message to the voters is that the “tsunami” of appointing public servants according to the political line is now history.

In the end the main question concerns the quality and the content of the policies and whether any “change” can be achieved. But I am afraid that most voters do not know much about the program and also that the show element in general is more appealing. The new coalition agreed on the vague directions which in fact do not say much about real performance of particular policies. However, more will be known after the appointment of the government and its ministers.

Vladimir: The same lot as usual?
Estragon: The same? I don’t know.

Nevertheless, it is better to stay attentive and see what the so-called fresh political wind can contribute to further development of the a relatively new democracy. And we should not forget that the previous government also promised more transparency, professionalism and less political interference in the public…But ended up acting in a totally opposite way. So, what shall we expect in a near future? I would say: let’s hope for the best and be ready for the worst….

Estragon: Charming spot. Inspiring prospects. Let’s go.
Vladimir: We can’t.
Estragon: Why not?
Vladimir: We’re waiting for Godot.
Estragon: (despairingly) Ah!

Quotes in italic are taken from “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett (Part 1 and Part 2)

WHAT TO DO? Well, the spark that could spice up these elections came from the most (un)expected place: the (ir)responsible, (un)worthy, and down right (un)democratic Romanian Parliament. An institution that has almost no respect among citizens, decided to raise by 50% the salaries of teachers and professors all over the education system, in order to boost the polls. And, so started the final Act between the former allies: The President and the Prime-Minister. Cynically, El Presidente wants to give away the money, so his pet party can win the elections. The rebellious Prime-Minister (un)respectfully begs to differ, in order to save whatever is left of his party supporters, arguing the economic doom of Romania would follow inextricably, should the salaries be raised. The rest of the parties have the same incoherent discourse about nothing, a little bit like Jerry Seinfeld, but without any intelligent punch lines. The Prime Minister suspends the application of the law by way of emergency ordinance until next year. So much for the Constitution. But then again, last year was worse, with the impeachment of the the President. What leadership will Romania vote at the end of the next 30 days of political campaigning? Most likely it will not vote. That is the first sign of abandoning hope. Those who will vote, will have to choose pretty much the same thing. There is no specific difference among the candidates. The same usual suspects. Can Basescu and the rest of the bunch deal a new promise of hope that change will finally be acted upon? All they can promise is 50% more of everything. Which, in the end, will probably be 50% less. But, in the words of wisely Forrest Gump, ‘shit happens!’. Romania is used to it.

“Make complex ideas easy to understand” … sounds like the EU needs something like that. Although the EU started experimenting with online videos lately, it still lacks creativity and a certain “online buzz”. Most of the videos about the EU (not only EUtube!) are either pure news reports or have a political motivation. However, one of the greatest problems of the EU is that nobody understands what exactly it does and how it works (which can also explain low turnouts at European elections). Unfortunately EUtube as well as other video producers do not address these issues. Short simple online videos could help people to learn and think about the EU.  Maybe the video on US elections can turn into an inspiration to produce similar videos about the European elections or the EU decision making process …in plain 23 languages!

Of course this seems to be a politically motivated move of the Russian authorities especially since the University has close connections to the USA and EU. Moreover, the university runs a programme funded by the European Commission to improve the monitoring of Russian elections which has been criticized by Putin on a number of occasions. Read more about it here, here and here.

A petition of support is available for signing here. The least we can do, I suppose.

One might imagine that Romania, a new EU member, gives a relatively high degree of importance to the European Parliament elections. Well, it was not exactly the case. Postponed for more than half a year, they were not at all popular among politicians from across the political spectrum. An explanation could be found in the fact that the mandate they would run for is not a regular one but only one year and a half long, without yet enjoying the financial benefits foreseen in the EP reform due in 2009.

Moreover, being elected for the European Parliament would mean being “banned” from the Romanian political scene exactly in the important electoral year 2008 (with presidential and parliamentary elections in Romania). That is why the lists of the main political parties consist of many low profile candidates, mostly unknown to the public, along with a few well-known and even controversial names which have been included to attract more votes.

By contract with the rather apathetic electoral campaign and press coverage for the EP elections, the referendum for changing the voting system into a “first past the post” system became a long debated topic. It was initiated and strongly supported by the President Traian Basescu (see a campaign picture on the left). The reasons are not entirely clear, but one can assume that, given Basescu’s bad experiences with coalition partners, he is in favor of clear majorities and the reduction of small parties. Especially in the light of the upcoming parliamentary elections next year the change of the voting system might help PD to win the elections with a comfortable majority. The outcome of the referendum might be a success for the charismatic President mainly because of his popularity.

Having clear majorities is indeed desirable for the Romanian political system, but it is questionable whether the proposed electoral reform is enough to change the political landscape. What Romania really needs is a far-reaching constitutional reform that transforms the bicameral system into a unicameral one. Even the semi-presidential system as such should be revisited because clear majorities would even work better with clearly divided powers and responsibilities.