The Model Berezovski

"For Berezovski, or for the Russian oligarch, the men of power could be divided into two categories: condom in package and used condom", a biographer of the controversial Russian businessman was writing. This is only one of the explanations of the marriage between politics and business, which represents the rule in Russia where, after 1990, there appeared a special type of businessman, ready anytime to make business with the State, in close relationship with the political men, engaged in affairs or vendettas with them by the agency of the mass media they hold.
In Romania, the proportions are not the same, but the model is. The most recent case is the one of the businessman Dan Voiculescu. After having built up a party around the mass media empire Antena 1 – Jurnalul National ("National Daily") , a party with most of the members recruited from the area of the economic oligarchy, presented as private investors, Voiculescu obtained a strategic position that any politician would want to use. Though he has alaways denied his relationship with the former Securitate service, Dan Voiculescu was actually employed by a covered unit of Securitate, "Argus Office". The most important position he had occupied was in "Crescent", a firm of Securitate by the agency of which import-export operations took place. After 1989, he comes out as a prosperous businessman, holder of "Grivco", disposing of funds that he could never explain convincingly.
As an associate in the governing, PUR (Humanist Romanian Party) would have never called attention on it unless an apparently minor scandal hadn’t disturbed, for several days, PDSR (Social Democracy Party) entrails. The reason, presented by Prime Minister Adrian Nastase, is related to the new adherents to PUR, former PDSR members, as Alexandru Dutu, Social Liberals as Vasile Secares or controversial ones as Dan Pazara. Where does it come form, this concern for the PDSR image from a Premier that didn’t take into consideration the attacks of the press against the men from Securitate appointed in key-positions in State?
An explanation could come from the fragmented declarations, with clear target, of the Premier. Between the big business trusts, paying for PDSR during the electoral campaign, and the Premier, e started a cold war with pretty many unknown elements.
The magnates are not content with the inconsistent or reserved answer of the Premier to their pretensions. The first sin appeared quite son, when Nastase publicly commented the fact that he would not yield to the pressures related to the privatization process.
How could one interpret than, the yielding gesture the Government made for Sidex, postponing the bid deadline only in order to permit the registering of a consortium including Grivco too, Voiculescu’s property? Is this postponement a compromise within PDSR or a game with apparent giving up form the Premier, in order not to irritate too much the allies in the government or the magnates? For a responsible Premier, it is quite clear that Sidex survival depends on a strategic investor of international caliber, capable to ensure the sale market, not one of the companies that import and export its raw materials.
It would be for the first time after 1990 that, within the privatization process, a colossus is implied, even in the "heart" of the Romanian industry, where private national interests, politically articulated at the highest level, would be involved. An extraordinary temptation for the power to follow the Russian model. Or to demonstrate that it works in the interest of the Romania economy. It depends on how PURe its intention is.
(Mihai CHIPER)