Tag Archives: Governments and parties

One last favor

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It was one of his last days in office, and president Illiescu decided to pay one last favor to an old friend.

Miron Cosma is hardly known outside of Romania. “King Coal”, as he’s dubbed sometimes, is a dangerous demagogue, a ruthless criminal, and adored by his followers.

Miron Cosma is a leader of miners. In 1990, he led his men into Bucharest to help President Illiescu solve a problem: protesting students. The miners tore through the city like a natural disaster. They pillaged and ransacked the city as if they were a horde of barbarians. Illiescu thanked them for their patriotic help.
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A Romanian surprise

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Everybody is giddy. In Bucharest, that is. Basescu is the new president of Romania. As a result, the marriage of PSD and PUR suddenly went sour and PUR announced that for “the good of the country” they would consider a coalition with other partners too.

A-ha.

The next days should be interesting.

The voter turnout seemed huge yesterday. It didn’t look much like a Sunday on the streets, and Bucharest is strongly pro-Basescu. (Basescu is the mayor of Bucharest.) So I’m surprised, but not very surprised.

I’ve hardly ever seen so many happy faces on the streets like today. Nice.

On the other side of the continent

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While attention remains focused on Ukraine’s political crisis, another one is forming on the other side of Europe in Portugal. A crisis of a somewhat lesser magnitude, admittedly, but it seems likely that President Sampaio is about to dissolve the Portuguese parliament and call fresh elections, making the Pedro Santana Lopes face a vote after just four months in office.

The President has to meet with leaders of the parties in parliament and the Council of State before officially being able to dissolve Parliament, but given that Sampaio believes Santana Lopes ‘lacked the indispensable conditions to continue to mobilise Portugal and the Portuguese in a coherent, rigorous and stable fashion‘ I suspect his mind may be made up, unless the governing parties decide to replace Santana Lopes with a new Prime Minister.

If elections are called, they’re not likely to happen until February, but they could lead to Socrates leading a European country – the Socialist Party, currently in opposition, is ahead in the polls and led by Jose Socrates.

Meanwhile, in Romania (2)

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Preliminary election results are in for Romania. But the outcome isn’t yet clear. Either the ruling PSD party is going to just squeak back in with a narrow majority — or it’s going to be a hung Parliament, which could lead to new elections fairly soon.

Nobody’s on the streets here. There are accusations of fraud, yes, but they appear to be retail rather than wholesale. (See my earlier post for the reasons why.) The OSCE will come out with a report in the next day or two, but meanwhile nobody’s getting too agitated.

For those of you who want the nitty gritty details — which party got how many votes, and such — you can find some of them over here. I’ll try to post regular updates until some conclusion is reached.

Meanwhile and elsewhere

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I’m sure Doug will have more to say about this, but the early results from the Romanian elections show it as being a lot closer that expected, with a run-off (between Nastase and Basescu) expected for the Presidency.

And the next French Presidential election may be three years away, but it’s already hotting up with the ‘coronation’ at the weekend of former Finance Minister Nicholas Sarkozy as leader of the ruling UMP (Union for a Popular Movement) party. This Guardian leader highlights a potential parallel with the last US elections, with the Democrats’ search for the ABB (Anyone But Bush) candidate mirrored by the Elysee Palace’s search for the TSS (Tout Sauf Sarkozy – anyone but Sarkozy) candidate which may, of course, be Jacques Chirac seeking a third term and his personal dream of occupying the Elysee for longer than Mitterrand.

Meanwhile, in Romania

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One country over from the Ukraine, Romania is also about to have elections. Election day is tomorrow, Sunday the 28th.

Romania is a sort of borderland right now. It joined NATO last year, and it’s an EU candidate member, with full membership scheduled (at the moment) in 2007. The economy has been growing briskly, and foreign investment is rising rapidly (albeit from a very low base).

But the country is still desperately poor — per capita income, even adjusted for the lower cost of living, is less than a third of the EU average. Corruption is still pervasive. Political life is still dominated by the old Communist nomenklatura.

So whether Romania is doing well or badly is very much a relative question. Compared to, say, Hungary or Poland, they’re very much the poor Eastern cousins. Compared to Ukraine, never mind Belarus or Moldova, though, Romania is an economic and political success story.

And then there are these elections. Let me start with an obvious question: could the Romanian elections be stolen, in the same way that the Ukrainian elections have been? Will the incumbent government allow its candidates to lose?
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Tony in Trouble.

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Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, chatted live on a mobile chat with O2 subscribers today. I don’t know if the questions were sent in in text message lingo, but the transcript is remarkably legible. As asking complicated questions via a mobile handset is, well, complicated, the questions – and answers – are also remarkably concise.

I suppose one of them is gonna cause some trouble at Number 10 tonight…

Voodoo> Would you trust your wife to run the country?

PM> Well fortunately that’s not a question that’s arising!

Miners

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I’m writing from Bucharest, Romania. The Romanians haven’t shown a lot of interest in what’s happening in Ukraine. Oh, they’re following it, but it doesn’t seem to grab their imagination. Part of this, I think, is because they’re distracted — they have a big election of their own, for Parliament and the Presidency, this weekend. And, too, Romanians consider themselves “part of Europe”, while Ukraine is seen as outside. But whatever the reason, they don’t seem too interested.

Except for one detail.

Apparently Yanukovic and his supporters have been busing thousands of coal miners into the capital. Every Romanian that I’ve talked to has commented on this.

Why? Well, you have to know a little recent Romanian history.

Bucharest, 1991:
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Yukos And The Russian Oil Card

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The Financial Times is reporting that all senior executives of the Yukos oil company have left Russia. The FT suggests they fear for their safety amid a flurry of arrest and search warrants issued by Russian prosecutors for oil company managers.

?There is not a single member of the management board left in Russia at the moment,? a person familiar with the situation said on Wednesday. Yukos, which has been crippled by tax claims of over $20bn (?15bn) and faces the forced sale of its main production asset, is now managed by remote control, according to the person.
Source: Financial Times

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