Having won 45 per cent of the votes, Romania’s Social Democrats, PSD, have managed to win the general election, and as such will form the new government with support from the smaller, center-right ALDE. Interestingly enough, it is still not clear whether the party’s leader, Liviu Dragnea, can become the prime minister because he is currently serving a suspended 2-year sentence for vote rigging in 2012. The law does not allow a person with a criminal record to become Prime Minister but the constitutionality of that law might be challenged as part of a political deal to let Dragnea, a powerful politician, run the executive anyway. [...]
Compared to the PiS, PSD’s nationalism is considerably “tamer”. They have played the „Romania for Romanians” card during their campaign, they speak about focusing on home economy and they are not above taking a stab at foreigners. The Romanian President is ethnically German and the wife of outgoing Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos, as well as Clotilde Armand, one of the leaders of the rival part USR, are French born. Dragnea has made xenophobic comments about them all, though he was not the only one: in fact, most parties running in the elections have resorted to some form of nationalism, which resonates well with voters in Romania. But PSD is still quite far from the ultra-nationalism that is being shown by PiS. The rhetoric is lighter, as is the instrumentalisation of history, and the Romanian Orthodox Church, though close to PSD, can only dream of ever having the influence of the Polish Catholic one. Romanians – at least until recently – have generally maintained a self-deprecating attitude towards their nationality. While it is certainly quite possible this will change, especially given the current international climate, it is important to note that there were also new, well-financed far-right parties running in these elections and none of them made it into the Parliament. [...]
As with Poland, there is no real left-wing party in Romania. The PSD, despite its promises of minimum wages and tax breaks, is quite far from being an actual social-democratic party. Even if we ignore the corruption, they have repeatedly been in power and have done little to reduce income inequalities, alleviate poverty, improve working conditions or offer good quality social services. The cuts they propose for their upcoming mandate include both the rich and the poor and it remains to be seen what funding they intend to allocate to social services. Their social conservatism and nationalism also have no place in a left-wing movement.
No comments:
Post a Comment