The President-father

Presidential elections during which the Romanians do not have subjects to argue about as goatees, age or presumed medical records, this is something new for us. A recently launched project of PNL (the National Liberal Party) that is to be discussed within the next meetings with the rest of important political parties refers to the modification of the Constitution, mainly for the reduction of the presidential attributions. The latter would not be elected by direct vote any more but named subsequently by the Parliamentarians. The project should be taken into consideration after the next month elections by the elected Parliament and would become valid with the 2004 elections. The project also stipulates the reinforcement of the Prime Minister’s role, the differentiation of the tow legislative houses and the reduction in number of the Senators and Deputies. Briefly, the Deputies House and the Senate would be composed of 150 members, comparing to 350 now. The Deputies House will legislate and the Senate will approve the most important international treaties, the rest of them being adopted by the Government. In the same context, the parliamentary immunity would restraint to the right of opinion in the Parliament. It also proposes that a Parliamentarian that leaves the party in whose lists he was elected should be dismissed, as the ministers who would not be supported any more by the parties who proposed them.
Undoubtedly, these last propositions would be favorable for the Romanian political life. The fact that the tow parliamentary houses have now absolutely identical attributions renders more difficult the legislating activity. Which is a more serious problem as Romania is now in a difficult period and it needs a huge number of new laws. On the other hand, the proposition that a politician unsupported by his political formation should his position is also a useful one. In default of political common sense, like in the case of Radu Vasile’s dismissal from the top of the Government, we could wait for the law.
This gets more difficult when it comes to the election of the President by the Parliament. For too many years, the Romanians have been used to the image of the President-father. Will we be ready by 2004 to abandon this cliché?
The Czech republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary abandoned it immediately after 1990 and they became parliamentary republics. In Poland, a presidential republic, we can see that the political scandals and the tough personal attacks during the campaigns are not rarities at all. Unlike Poland, Hungary and Slovenia, parliamentary republics, do not have to face political scandals, so harmful to a positive evolution of a country in a transition process. However, we could not say this is a rule. In the Czech Republic, for instance, a parliamentary republic too, the disputed within the governmental coalition are pretty common place. But in the case of the Czech Republic we consider to be atypical too the political character that Vaclav Havel represents, though he was elected by the Parliament and has relatively reduced prerogatives. For Romania the specific aspect is the fact that all the electoral campaigns till now were extremely personalized, exaggeratedly focused on the performance of the presidential candidate and paying little attention to the economic programs presented by the parties.
On the other hand, the fact that the authority in Romania is diffusely perceived represents a big handicap. Who is more important, more authoritarian now: the President or the Prime Minister? This is a dilemma and the fact that the answer is not clear is not an advantage at all in the present circumstances, when the transition period lasts and the state authority diminishes.
Finally, the fact that the foreign officials will clearly know whom they have to talk to if they want to do it in best terms is a good thing too.
Above all these reasons, it is quite clear that we shall need a strong political will in order to make all these decisions. This is not easy at all for the party leaders to renounce to a part of their "capital". And this is not delighting for the parties either to accept that for the 2004 elections the sweepstakes is only for the premier function.
(Claudiu RAUS)