(story to be published in tomorrow’s issue, March 20)
The latest scandals that again came dangerously close to breaking the coalition apart had all the symptoms of a crisis, as the diagnosis was from the very beginning. But before establishing whether the crisis is over, one can say it is first of all the agony of a coalition that has not functioned well since its establishment. Has it been a continuous crisis that had its moments of calm? A rewind of the present government, which is beyond the scope of this article, shows that relations between coalition partners have been those of responsible collaboration only in key moments and after prolonged disputes and threats. Participation in the CDR-USD-UDMR government has been, from the outset, an electoral exercise of image, where each of the parties has tried to promote its own programmes as priorities that could stand no postponement and would serve as the country’s source of bounty. And it still is an unending struggle – splitting the power’s chairs under the standard established as the government cooperation principle, called the political algorithm. Therefore, the scandal we have been witnessing for more than a month is another convulsion of a coalition in a state of permanent crisis, which has revealed the weaknesses and individual narcissism of the parties and allied formations. It started with the resignation of Victor Babiuc and the claim to the Defence minister’s seat, and ended with PD’s threat to leave government (which time is this?) as well as Liberals’ first such threat. In an election year and with such an experience of cohabitation, this alliance breaking apart will not surprise anyone. But the threats to leave Power can no longer scare anyone as long as the parties seem to have forgotten their commitment to their programmes. Furthermore, the primary argument that deepened dissent was again the algorithm, although virtually all coalition parties lost some of their MPs and theoretically lost majority in Parliament. Given that, what is the value of the show we are witnessing? Who are the winners and the losers? One of the biggest losers coming up ahead is the PNL, headed by Valeriu Stoica, the politician with a sustained rise in the last three years who, unless he can push through with his Justice reform laws, will be facing his first failure. During the scandal, the Liberals lost both within the coalition, and in the CDR. At the very moment they set out to make their case as a decisive party, as a master of ceremonies within the coalition. PNL only half-willingly supported Victor Babiuc and, by giving him no explicit political support, did not improve its own image. Additionally, it won the declared hostility of PD. In this stage of the crisis, the Liberals lost on all counts, although they had enough examples to prove that there are cases when the algorithm is useless. In their turn, the Liberals saw their Justice reform laws had no support from their own Convention partners, the Christian-Democrats, who on the first occasion proved that without PN?CD’s support, the Liberals have no chance. The Christian-Democrats gave the Liberals their first counter-strike after the two major crises when they missed their help: Victor Ciorbea’s dismissal, when the coup de grace came from PNL, and losing the Premier seat. With waters troubled inside it, in a tight electoral image struggle, CDR can only lose, but among the Convention’s parties the greatest deficit will be found in the Liberals’ camp. Notwithstanding the efforts to appear as a powerful party that not only mediates conflicts but also dictates solutions, PNL, already defeated in the matter of government assumption of responsibility for Justice reform, could be perceived as a party that still lacks enough strength to go alone in the elections. Implicitly, neither does Valeriu Stoica stand to win in this dispute, since, although he has been noted as a party leader and a confidant of President Constantinescu, he is not his personal collaborator, and is not a leader that brings the party a boost of image through the strategies he puts together. But CDR overall has again suffered a failure through the indifference of President Constantinescu, more concerned about appearing as a referee (a saviour of the coalition’s peace) in the public eyes than, as it would have been understandable, especially in the election campaign, looking for unconditional political support on this side of the political spectrum. This time again, PD has emerged as a winner, although more weakened than ever, because it has obtained everything it has set out to obtain, the Defence Ministry, while losing many important people, and has settled older scores with its adversaries. Therefore, regardless of the relations that still hold the government coalition together, the biggest and real winner is PDSR. First of all, because it scores points without doing anything, and second, because every political party dreams about collaborating with it, if not now, on the brink of Parliament elections, at least later, in the autumn elections.