Sunday, November 29, 2009

Motherhood & Apple Pie

Marian Lupu's 12-point plan appears to have a good chance of being accepted by moderate communists and facilitating his election as president. As the title of this post suggests, most of it is so innocuous that it would unite even the most extreme political foes. As nobody would argue that motherhood is a good thimg, so nobody would argue with 'promoting a spirit of dialog and compromise'.

There are some potential barbs among the points however. Point 2 gives the Communists control over the Auditor General's Office and the Central Election Commission. Given the need to (a) investigate white-collar crime committed under communist rule and (b) clean up the electoral process, neither of these moves seems terribly smart.

The 'socially oriented economic policy' of point 3 sounds warm and cuddly, but could actually end up postponing much needed reform in health, pensions, welfare and taxation.

Point 5 talks about communist participation in resolution of the Transnistrian dispute; hard to see how they could make a positive contribution after eight years of failure...

The worst is saved for last; In point 12 Lupu uses emotive language and plays to communist fantasies about Romanian 'iredentism' by promising to preserve Moldova's statehood. A simple and unbiased statement that the AIE wouldn't seek unification with Romania would have sufficed.

In summary, Lupu has made some significant concessions to the communists. These are unfortunate but are unlikely to be fatal.
Posted by Zimbru at 10:56 PM

4 comments:

  1. Both moves in point 2 are already provided in a law enacted back in 2005. Everyone seems to have forgotten these are already the rules of the game, and not a subject of negotiation. It's like saying: alright, we can agree to respect the Constitution and laws if you agree to give us something in return:-/
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  2. Lucia, were the PCRM likely to be responsible in their stewardship of the two institutions, then allowing the 2005 law to stand would make sense.

    The problem I have is that under the last communist administration the two institutions were placed in the hands of the 'tame' opposition and apparently abused. Why should we expect the PCRM to exercise its role responsibly now?
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  3. In both case the "tame" opposition, if I remember correctly, was PD (Stirbu of the CEC definitely is a PD person), and the PD is now part of the Alliance. That's a slight paradigm shift towards one specific party, don't you think?

    But my concern is not the behavior of the Communists, but that of the AIE: we promise to observe [some] rules of the game if you, Commies, vote - and that's our offer? How responsible is that for a securing a needed dialog?

    I would rather assert that Filat doesn't seem to want Lupu for president and would prefer early elections, and that's where the alliance's cocky behavior originates at. Early elections are not necessarily bad, they may actually turn out great for the Libdems and their leader, the PM.
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  4. ...and not so great for Lupu, especially if he were to remain a mere faction head in parliament without any owned media support for another year.
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