Green-light to the referendum on the fight against corruption
Romanias Parliament has advised in favour of the referendum announced in late January by President Klaus Iohannis regarding the fight against corruption and the integrity of the public office.
Ştefan Stoica, 14.02.2017, 14:18
The start of the political new year in Romania was rough. A new Government took the reigns of power, made up predominantly of members of the leftist Social Democratic Party, the winner of December 2016’s parliamentary elections, and several members of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Romania. A government that rushed into adopting some of the social measures promised during the election campaign, and which actually secured its win, but which soon after surprised everybody with two emergency decrees that would grant collective pardon and would amend criminal law, favoring the corrupt.
With the second decree, the Cabinet was keen on going all the way through, thus triggering severe criticism by judicial institutions, large-scale citizen protests and the right-wing opposition filing a motion of no-confidence. Eventually, the government abrogated the much denigrated ordinance that was meant to partially decriminalize abuse of office. Before this avalanche of events, Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis made a move and announced that he would call on the Romanian citizens to have their say on the fight against corruption by means of a referendum. On Monday, Romania’s Parliament, although not on very good terms with the President, endorsed the referendum, thus triggering comments from both supporters and opponents to the idea of a referendum on corruption. The interim president of the National Liberal Party Raluca Turcan has taken advantage of the situation in order to criticize once more the leaders of the governmental coalition and the Prime Minister. Raluca Turcan:
“We can set things straight and show people that the political attitude displayed by Mr. Dragnea, Mr. Tariceanu and Mr. Grindeanu was just an accident and maybe in this way we will send the right political signal and take Romania out of this political conclave and put it on the right path towards the western European democracy.”
Senator Varujan Vosganian, a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Romania, has drawn attention to the fact that this initiative, whose outcome is rather easy to envisage, as it’s impossible for corruption to have supporters, would cost some 30 million Euros. Varujan Vosganian:
“What I am asking is, given that this is a referendum that we all agree with, and I’m convinced all parties have the same stand on this matter, and the electorate too, then why spend dozens of millions of Euros on something that we all know it’s going to happen?”
Ruling coalition parties are suspecting president Iohannis of having a hidden medium and long-term agenda, in the run-up to the 2019 presidential elections. Even if this were true, the one providing ammunition for such an agenda was the very Government, through its arguable decisions regarding the very sensitive field of the judiciary. (Translated by M. Igantescu)
