The chaos strategy desired by Putin is suicidally applied in Romania by its political, legal and security structures. The experiment of imitating democracy, specific to the Iohannis regime, seems to have gotten out of control, which means that this regime, instead of ending in the calm that characterizes it, has collapsed violently, causing victims collaterals, write in Contributors.ro political science professor Alexandru Gussi.
In Romania, there was, until Thursday, November 28, 2024, a constitutional order. A theoretically democratic, because a constitutional order also called in communist totalitarianism. The fundamental difference between the two is given by the fact that the one after 1989 is based on the legitimacy given by free elections. “We want free elections!” it was sung in the square in front of the CC and in other squares, on December 22, 35 years ago. We have seen, since the beginning of the super-electoral year 2024, the trepidation of those who hold executive and legislative power (PSD, PNL, led by the Head of State) before the prospect of these elections. Free, but somehow controlled, abused, manipulated through electoral engineers designed by the great specialists behind the scene.
How the anti-system vote was reached
The fusion of the local and the European was the first abuse of the government, one incensed by the CCR. But the hard part had just arrived, so there was a repeated and ridiculous change in the date of the presidential election: initially it was due in December, then they were moved to September, then they were moved to the due date. , but with the innovation, even constitutionally debatable, of the intercalation of parliamentarians between the two times.
As if it were not enough, Diana Sosoacă was removed from the presidential race, the arguments invoked by the CCR are shamefully superficial in relation to the seriousness of the decision.
All these premises encourage the anti-system vote. The biggest surprise of round 1 came therefore without surprise from the area of ​​electors who would have voted with Diana Șoșoacă. The huge surprise came from the proportions of the score and the person who was able to speculate on this context created by those in power. Călin Georgescu was propelled by the use of technopolitics combined with non-transparent funding. But it is nothing new. Nor the use of social networks with mass manipulation techniques, Iohannis being a beneficiary in the second round of the 2014 presidential election Nor, obviously, the illegal financing of some campaigns. They have to lead to criminal conviction, but the temporality of the legal process is incompatible with the temporality of the electoral process. After all, the judges feel at their slow pace and cannot choose for the citizens.
Institutions called to limit abuses in real time have failed. I have not seen any assumption of responsibility, but only the continuation of political games on the part of institutions whose neutrality is mandatory in the entire electoral process. And the vitiation of this process leads to a questionable legitimacy of each chosen one.
“Is it worth sacrificing trust in the entire democratic process based on a late and ambiguous reaction from political and unprofessional institutions?”
After the fateful day of November 28, this vice is, unfortunately, unavoidable.
CCR makes the dramatic decision to count the votes. Unprecedented.
The CSAT also makes waves with consequences for parliamentarians, issuing a statement in which it turns the defeat of the Ciolacu-Ciucă couple into a matter of national security. If someone needed more proof that the services get involved in politics, implicitly from the CSAT I learned that they need to participate even better. Hence the recommendation at the end of the CSAT communiqué, in summary: more vigilance, comrades!
Otherwise, there is no clear evidence, was Russian interference decisive? Is it worth sacrificing trust in the entire democratic process based on a late and ambiguous reaction of some political and unprofessional institutions?
We learn from the CSAT that there were cyber attacks, but that it was because of the banality of the geopolitical context, if Cotroceniul had not told us a few days before that there were no such attacks. We also learned that a candidate, it is understood Călin Georgescu, did not respect the electoral law at the level of financing the campaign on TikTok. But this was already evident, moreover, an STS statement denied part of the assumptions of the statement. In fact, CSAȚ wanted to cast, like CCR, a great shadow of doubt over the entire electoral process in the first round.
A strategy of compromise in the eyes of public opinion
The convening of the CSAT by Iohannis was, like the CCR decision, part of a complex strategy to compromise the first time in the eyes of public opinion.
In this dangerous strategy, in addition to the mobilization of media structures and opinion leaders well within the structures (certainly, perhaps not those that produced Călin Georgescu, some rivals), the central place belongs to the Constitutional Court . The problem is that the CCR, led by an old tool of the Iliescu regime, arrived at the end of 2024 and without the credibility that it still had in front of those most willing to respect the authority of state institutions in general
Recounting votes, when there is such a small difference, 2740 votes, it is understandable. The problem is that the PSD, the interested party, did not have the courage to ask for this recount, probably because it involved a political cost in the parliament. But we do not have the right to be naive and think that they did not know perfectly who would challenge and that their people at the Court would act as one to save the country in danger. I mean the Party. Because they have been confused for 45 plus 35 years.
We cannot therefore look at the communications and actions of November 28 of the CCR and the CSAT as other than partisan political actions, their speech should not be read in an institutional way, but politically, in order to make a effect on the parliamentary elections of Sunday, December 1. Its late activation and without immediate practical effects, instead with a definite effect on the sense of crisis and social tension that amplify irresponsibly, can be described as an attempt at diversion. A diversion of the shameful defeat of the presidents of the parties in power, a diversion of the institutional failure symbolized by the victory of Călin Georgescu which demobilized the active PSDPNL, a diversion made to question the qualification of Elena Lasconi in the 2nd round, so also the effect of this qualification on the point of the USR by female parliamentarians, a diversion made to jam the campaign for female parliamentarians as a whole.
In addition, the voters will go to the legislatures in the context of the recount, but without knowing the official result and the qualifications on May 2 and risk a lot of information about the sources, which will be false, everyone claims to have won the second account. In other words, it opens up a whole field of misinformation and therefore vulnerability, exactly what should have been avoided. Those who lead us have become true arsonists.
The goal pursued by these responsible-irresponsible blind by partisan interest includes the creation of confusion and distrust of citizens in the power of their vote. It is not only a cynical strategy, but also one in line with all the actions mentioned above, carried out since the beginning of the year. In any case, the effect will be dangerous – against the desired. The institutions that devised this strategy are also marked by politics and incompetence. But mostly hubris. These people imagine that no matter what mistake they make, no one can hold them accountable, the power is with them. eternal
The biggest risk, however, is that of some protest movements coming from not one, but both directions
Out of this feeling of invulnerability, an injured these days but who still seems alive, can arise major risks. The illegitimacy of the next president, the social and inter-institutional fractures, the economic costs inherent in every crisis.
The biggest risk, however, is that of some protest movements coming from not one, but two directions of the anti-system area. Beyond the changes of the last hour, for now we have an accomplice power PSD-PNL-Iohannis, which is based on two different voters, but increasingly similar and minority. In addition, an anti-system majority (about 60% in the presidential elections), which will not vote for the parties that have the vocation to govern together.
A period of political instability is ahead, but we hope that the moment of November 28 is not the beginning of the repetition of the rapid succession of events that led to the suspension of the president in 2012. At that time, the power PSD-PNL. , which forced the constitutional limits and the operation of many institutions, was in the majority both in the Parliament and in the country.
The current power, which consists basically of those who unleashed the unnecessary and dramatic institutional crisis of 2012 and who have remained in power since then, are not the majority at the level of society, nor the parliamentary majority in a few days. .
