Romanian elections for president - The beginning of the end of Basescian era?

Yesterday, romanian people voted for the new president of Romania. And because none of the candidates obtained the absolute majority, as expected, the incumbent president Traian Basescu and social-democrat Mircea Geoana are going to second tour of elections on 6th of December. Until now, everything it’s pure news. But let’s take a deeper look into the context of elections, the context of the recent history and try to see what will be the result on the 6th of December.

First of all, let us look through the perspective of the party PDL and its president, Traian Basescu. The D.A. alliance between PD and PNL, which won the elections in 2004 and formed the new government, broke shortly after the installation at Victoria Palace, PNL remaining the minority government. From then on, political tensions arose due to the conflicts between President of Romania, Basescu, and the liberal Prime-Minister, Tariceanu.

In 2008, the alliance “Partnership for Romania” between PDL and PSD, which formed the new government, lasted only less than 6 months, when all PSD ministers decided to resign due to misunderstandings with PDL ministers created also by the President Basescu, through his marionette Prime-Minister, Emil Boc.

From these facts, we can deduce that none of the two parties, PSD and PNL, managed to create an efficient relationship with PDL, because of the behavior of the main voice of the party, Traian Basescu. And if we look at what happened recently, it is clear that an informal alliance against Basescu has arisen. The proof is the recently voted censorship motion by the PSD and PNL and the fall of Boc government.

Now, let’s return to the elections for the president. The exit-polls show that PSD candidate, Mircea Geoana, and incumbent president, Traian Basescu, are the competitors for the second tour.

The discourses

Immediately after the publication of exit-polls, the two started in their discourses to woo PNL for a potential alliance, and implicit for the liberal votes. On one hand, Basescu promoted the idea of a right-wing government with PNL (but let’s take into consideration that PDL was, until 2005, a left-wing party – some coherent party from a doctrinaire point of view), on the other hand Geoana continued his message of an alliance against Basescu.

The amazing outcome of last night was the discourse of PNL candidate, Crin Antonescu, which disappointed most of the opinion leaders. He used the lame message, typical for Basescu, posing as a victim of TV cartels and opinion poll institutes governed by them and suggesting that his percentage of 21% is totally untrue. But today, though, he had a firm and pragmatic discourse, probably realizing the mistake he did. I will analyze this discourse, as I consider the most important piece for what will happen in two weeks now.

Crin Antonescu declared today that he excludes an agreement with Basescu and takes into consideration the alliance with PSD and the technocrat Klaus Johannis as prime-minister due to two main reasons. One is the unfortunate experience they had with PDL in 2005, thus the lack of trust in this party, and the second is the potential positioning of PNL as the main right-wing party in Romania, taking into consideration the conflicts inside PDL after the failure of gaining the power.

This leaves Basescu no option, politically speaking, as the other two main parties sustain that they won’t negotiate with him anymore. And his discourse points out exactly what I said previously, as he started to deliver messages directly to the electors, mentioning that ultimately the people choose, and not the agreements between the parties. I consider this strategy as the best option he has at the moment. Another important aspect in his discourse is the word ‘victory’ related to the referendum for unicameral chamber in the Parliament initiated by the president and validated by the citizens also yesterday.

The conclusion

Until now, things look pretty clear. PNL will support PSD, both parties posing as against the incumbent president, therefore Geoana will win on the 6th of December. It remains to see how much power Basescu’s discourses will have and if his charisma still works, or how he can corrupt one of the two parties, which is NOT impossible.