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Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:05:15 +0300
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From: Dorin Cheptea <dorin.cheptea@gmail.com>
To: Wikipedia statistics <folks@wikipedometer.net>
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	Content preview: > In Estonia the law was changed some time ago so that
	not candidates but parties > would be voted on. As a result, a person
	running outside a party -- on his own -- got > almost the most votes,
	even enough for two seats (which he didn't get, naturally). > He got
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	Content preview:  > In Estonia the law was changed some time ago so that
	not candidates but parties > would be voted on. As a result, a person
	running outside a party -- on his own -- got > almost the most votes,
	even enough for two seats (which he didn't get, naturally). > He got
	*most* votes in all but three districts, even -- more than any party.
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> In Estonia the law was changed some time ago so that not candidates but
parties
> would be voted on.  As a result, a person running outside a party -- on
his own -- got
> almost the most votes, even enough for two seats (which he didn't get,
naturally).
> He got *most* votes in all but three districts, even -- more than any
party.

It's an European law that the European Parliament elections have to be base=
d
on lists. So, it was the same in all 27 countries. There exist several
theoretical options, however, that individual countries could implement, an=
d
they were subject to debate in Romania, but never got to be voted in. In
fact I don't know if ANY of the 27 countries had such options now. Namely,
you can vote for a list (that is required), but then you could have the
option to rate candidates within a list, or to select one or several of
them.

> Apparently, the shift away from left-wing parties was prominent throughou=
t
Europe.

Yes, in Romania as well. Although the Social Democrats (post-Communists) ar=
e
in the lead, their score of 30% is very low. (given the fact that less than
10 years ago they had a solid 40-45%) In the case of Romania one of the
reason is aging: Romanian Social-Democrats gather 50% of the votes of the
elderly and only 20% of the votes of the youth.

Turnout was 27%, a record low for all post-1989 elections. Dozens of people
> were arrested for voting twice, or trying to do so.
>

> That can get you arrested in Romania?

As far as I know nobody was actually arrested. They are going to investigat=
e
every case of voting at a different polling sections (at least they say so)=
,
which was surprisingly high: 500,000 of the 5,000,000 votes ! (compared to
just 2-3% in previous elections) Romania is well known for numerous cases o=
f
tourism voting, and this is tolerated by all parties, because it does not
favor a particular one.

Until now this phenomenon was kept in check by higher turnout
(200,000-300,000 among 10 million does not give much of an edge, considerin=
g
that your own "share" of fraudulent votes could be countered by the
fraudulent votes of the other parties), and occasionally (like the 1996
elections and 2007 referendum) by the spotlight (those votes represented
cornerstones of Romanian politics). In particular, there was widespread
rumor in 1996 that if the vote is frauded, there will be another revolution
(that got scared some people who preferred to concentrate on frauding local
elections).

This time however the turnout was super-low and in fact few cared about
these elections. So, the mobilization for electoral tourism was particularl=
y
feasable. Nevertheless, it seems that all parties employed it, so nobody is
particularly in disadvantage.

The current minister of interior (one of the few honest and professional
social-democrats) has vowed to persecute all cases of electoral fraud. We
will see what happened.

>In Estonia, you're given a ballot only if you're on the voting list, and
have not signed
> as having gotten one already, which kind of prevents double voting.

In Romania there were some cases of people coming to vote (on suplimentary
lists) the second time, and stupidly forgetting even to remove from the id
card the steak that was applied an hour ago at a different polling station.
:)

> Does anybody from you guys knows the Baltic/Romanian/ parties stand on
new
> European Party being made by British Conservatives(Cameron) and Czech and
> Polish allies ? Did any of them show interested in joining ?

Romanian politics has some Balkanic features: some politicians are
self-convinced they owe to leak the legs and bottoms of some great power.
You would be surprised to hear this now, but the active role Romania had
between the 2 world wars in Cordon Sanitaire was only in part ideological,
while in part it was a shameless show of servitude towards France. It just
happened that the two coincided.

This being the tradition, individuals are afraid to potentially annoy
somebody. So, I expect for the time being all 14 of the 33 seat to go to th=
e
European popular party and none to the British-Polish-Czech group. But
potentially, there are a number of people there which are
*moderately*eurocheptical. They rather prefer to call themselves
constuctive critics. 3
of the 14 seats are those of the Hungarian minority party, and 11 belong to
the democratic-liberals (including Basescu's daughter). Just in order to be
wimsical, Laszlo Tokes, one of the 3 Hungarians might opt to join
the British-Polish-Czech group. But he would do that just to annoy the
Romanians, not for ideological reasons.

11 seats go to the socialist, 5 to the liberals, and 3 are taken by Vadim's
party (which is a circus)

>
> > Among the interesting candidates elected were:
> *Corneliu Vadim Tudor, the Greater Romania Party leader and former court
poet to
> Nicolae Ceausescu
> *Gigi Becali, also running with Vadim's party. Becali, an Aromanian, is a
barely
> literate shepherd who became rich selling land. He owns Steaua, a
prominent
> Bucharest football team. The party started regaining support after he was
arrested
> and detained for a while recently, for having himself detained a man in
his house for
> some silly reason (stealing his car, maybe).

exactly, it's a circus

> *Norica Nicolai, the prosecutor appointed Justice Minister by former PM
Tariceanu
> and denied the spot by President Basescu in a bitter constitutional
struggle

The point of contention was that [president] Basescu objected to her
becoming minister of justice because during the communist regime at least o=
n
one well-documented occasion she, as a judge, condemned a dissident
persecuted by the Securitate.

> *Adrian Severin, steely-eyed apparatchik (
http://www.cdep.ro/parlamentari/l2004/mari/SeverinAdrian.jpg)

Interestingly, he is one of the few social-democrats that *no longer *steal=
s.
He is interested to have a good name and for his ego he is prepared to do
good things.

> *L=E1szl=F3 T=F5k=E9s, Calvinist bishop and probable espionage agent for =
the
Hungarian spy > service

He is part of the brain, not a low-level agent. Basically, currently his
only concern is to somehow contribute to distancing Hungarian minority from
Romania. And he is largely successful in that. He simply doesn't care about
any other issues. You can compare him to M.K. in WP: he would sell you 10
times to the Soviets or to whomever possible, even if his cause is hurt by
them.

> *Monica Macovei, irksome civil society type (I shall not forget her havin=
g
allowed
> Romania's first homosexual parade and her pressing to eliminate the ban
on
> sodomy)

Actually, this is news to me. She was a human rights activist before 2004,
then she was minister of justice for 2 years, trying the most radical refor=
m
of the Romanian justice system in history. The results of her action was th=
e
creation in 2006-2007 of the Black Coalition: Social-Decocrats (including
those close to Iliescu and those trying to distanciate from him) with
National-Liberals (which is basically the party of successful post-communis=
t
businessmen and their clients, with totally different economic thing in min=
d
that the Social-Democrats), with the Hungarian minority party, with the
anti-Hungarian Greater Romania Party in order to take down Monica Macovei
and her defender president Traian Basescu. They succeded to take her down,
but the referendum against Basescu failed by a 25% to 75% margin. To their
undoing, the population rallied behind Basescu (never before 1996 there wer=
e
80,000 demonstations), and the consequence of that is the change in
government that occurred after the election last December:
National-Liberals+Hungarian minority which formed a minority government in
2006-2008 barely got 20% altogether, Social-democrats were for the first
time the second party, and Greater Romania Vadim circus did not pass the
threshold. Now, I don't want to imply that the other remaining party,
Demoratic-Liberals, are clean. But the events brought them infusion of new
blood, especially from among the independents and the former
Liberal-Democratic fraction (which was a tiny group, but was ideologically
and politically consequent, and being small almost didn't have any corrupt
people). The old guard of the Democratic Party had to conceed to this
because for the first time another party managed to overtake the former
communists in the first place. A good portion of the candidates for Europea=
n
Parliament they ran now became members of the party days before in order to
be able legally to run: Macovei, Preda, Ungureanu, etc.

Christian, don't get me wrong: I also don't like gay fests (I believe they
should be held only indoors), but this is hardly an issue in Romania, where
90% of the population is openly anti-gay.

Actually, George Sabin Cuta=BA  seems to have got a seat in EP: he was
> no. 8 in the PSD- PC alliance list
> http://www.partidulconservator.ro/?a=3D1688 - and that cartel got 11
> seats. This leaves the intriguing question open, which faction he
> would (could!)  join there.
>
> Do you know anyone who supports the Conservative Party? Is it just a
> one-man enterprise with no authentic ideology (as, incidentally
> Estonia's Soc dems who used to have no authentic ideology apart from
> vague pro-reform/ centre-right positions)
>
> M.
>
>
> On 09/06/2009, Christian Suciu <christiansuciu@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Yes, the Conservatives are in an alliance with the Social Democrats.
> (Odd,
> > no? But Romanian politics isn't really about ideology.) I don't think a=
ny
> of
> > the MEPs elected is a member - even in Parliament, of 163 Socialists an=
d
> > Conservatives, just 5 belong to the latter party. It would probably be
> dying
> > out were it not for the alliance, and even so, I could see it being
> absorbed
> > one of these days. Though its multimillionaire leader does like the aur=
a
> of
> > being a party boss.
>

Yes, Social-Democrats are in alliance with a tiny party that changed its
name a couple years ago to Conservative in an attempt to get attention
(historical Romanian Conservative Party ruled before WWI). That party, led
by Dan Voiculescu (a former foreign trade agent of Ceausescu, who had
several millions of communist party money in 1989, when for one dollar you
could buy anything) barely has any members. Generally these are the
employees of the companies of Voiculescu and his cartel, underqualified (bu=
t
honest as people) individuals who appreciate their much higher than average
salary. For example in the construction industry. But of curse many more
othres. Voiculescu owes Antena 1, 2 and 3 TV stations, which are the main
anti-Basescu media outlets. Voiculescu and National-Liberals are
ideologically well-alined, except that Voiculescu has an ace - he has some
way to exercise leverage upon the Social-democratic leadership, and prefers
to use it for own good, not to share it with Tariceanu, Antonescu and other
National-Liberals, which just as him defend the interest of big businesses
(people that became suddenly very rich after 1989 and want all
investigations to stop).

If you notice, there are no "European themes" mentioned above, which is
exactly as in reality in Romania
.
Dorin

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<div><span class=3D"Apple-style-span" style=3D"border-collapse: collapse; "=
><div>&gt; In Estonia the law was changed some time ago so that not candida=
tes but parties</div><div>&gt; would be voted on. =A0As a result, a person =
running outside a party -- on his own -- got=A0</div>
<div>&gt; almost the most votes, even enough for two seats (which he didn&#=
39;t get, naturally). =A0</div><div>&gt; He got *most* votes in all but thr=
ee districts, even -- more than any party.</div><div><br></div><div>It&#39;=
s an European law that the European Parliament elections have to be based o=
n lists. So, it was the same in all 27 countries. There exist several theor=
etical options, however, that individual countries could implement, and the=
y were subject to debate in Romania, but never got to be voted in. In fact =
I don&#39;t know if ANY of the 27 countries had such options now. Namely, y=
ou can vote for a list (that is required), but then you could have the opti=
on to rate candidates within a list, or to select one or several of them.</=
div>
<div><br></div><div><div>&gt; Apparently, the shift away from left-wing par=
ties was prominent throughout Europe.</div><div class=3D"im" style=3D"color=
: rgb(80, 0, 80); "></div></div><div><br></div><div>Yes, in Romania as well=
. Although the Social Democrats (post-Communists) are in the lead, their sc=
ore of 30% is very low. (given the fact that less than 10 years ago they ha=
d a solid 40-45%) In the case of Romania one of the reason is aging: Romani=
an Social-Democrats gather 50% of the votes of the elderly and only 20% of =
the votes of the youth.</div>
<div><br></div><div><div class=3D"im" style=3D"color: rgb(80, 0, 80); "><bl=
ockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px;=
 margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-lef=
t-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex; "=
>
<table cellspacing=3D"0" cellpadding=3D"0" border=3D"0"><tbody><tr><td vali=
gn=3D"top" style=3D"margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;=
 margin-left: 0px; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font: inherit; "><div>Tu=
rnout was 27%, a record low for all post-1989 elections. Dozens of people w=
ere arrested for voting twice, or trying to do so.</div>
</td></tr></tbody></table></blockquote><div><br></div></div><div>&gt; That =
can get you arrested in Romania?</div></div><div><br></div><div>As far as I=
 know nobody was actually arrested. They are going to investigate every cas=
e of voting at a different polling sections (at least they say so), which w=
as surprisingly high: 500,000 of the 5,000,000 votes ! (compared to just 2-=
3% in previous elections) Romania is well known for numerous cases of touri=
sm voting, and this is tolerated by all parties, because it does not favor =
a particular one.=A0</div>
<div><br></div><div>Until now this phenomenon was kept in check by higher t=
urnout (200,000-300,000 among 10 million does not give much of an edge, con=
sidering that your own &quot;share&quot; of fraudulent votes could be count=
ered by the fraudulent votes of the other parties), and occasionally (like =
the 1996 elections and 2007 referendum) by the spotlight (those votes repre=
sented cornerstones of Romanian politics). In particular, there was widespr=
ead rumor in 1996 that if the vote is frauded, there will be another revolu=
tion (that got scared some people who preferred to concentrate on frauding =
local elections).</div>
<div><br></div><div>This time however the turnout was super-low and in fact=
 few cared about these elections. So, the mobilization for electoral touris=
m was particularly feasable. Nevertheless, it seems that all parties employ=
ed it, so nobody is particularly in disadvantage.=A0</div>
<div><br></div><div>The current minister of interior (one of the few honest=
 and professional social-democrats) has vowed to persecute all cases of ele=
ctoral fraud. We will see what happened.</div><div><br></div><div>&gt;In Es=
tonia, you&#39;re given a ballot only if you&#39;re on the voting list, and=
 have not signed=A0</div>
<div>&gt; as having gotten one already, which kind of prevents double votin=
g. =A0</div><div><br></div><div>In Romania there were some cases of people =
coming to vote (on suplimentary lists) the second time, and stupidly forget=
ting even to remove from the id card the steak that was applied an hour ago=
 at a different polling station. :)</div>
<div><br></div><div>&gt; Does anybody from you guys knows the Baltic/Romani=
an/ parties stand on new=A0</div><div>&gt; European Party being made by Bri=
tish Conservatives(Cameron) and Czech and=A0</div><div>&gt; Polish allies ?=
 Did any of them show interested in joining ?<br>
</div><div><br></div><div>Romanian politics has some Balkanic features: som=
e politicians are self-convinced they owe to leak the legs and bottoms of s=
ome great power. You would be surprised to hear this now, but the active ro=
le Romania had between the 2 world wars in Cordon Sanitaire was only in par=
t ideological, while in part it was a shameless show of servitude towards F=
rance. It just happened that the two coincided.</div>
<div><br></div><div>This being the tradition, individuals are afraid to pot=
entially annoy somebody. So, I expect for the time being all 14 of the 33 s=
eat to go to the European popular party and none to the British-Polish-Czec=
h group. But potentially, there are a number of people there which are <i>m=
oderately</i> eurocheptical. They rather prefer to call themselves constuct=
ive critics. 3 of the 14 seats are those of the Hungarian minority party, a=
nd 11 belong to the democratic-liberals (including Basescu&#39;s daughter).=
 Just in order to be wimsical, Laszlo Tokes, one of the 3 Hungarians might =
opt to join the=A0British-Polish-Czech group. But he would do that just to =
annoy the Romanians, not for ideological reasons.</div>
<div><br></div><div>11 seats go to the socialist, 5 to the liberals, and 3 =
are taken by Vadim&#39;s party (which is a circus)</div><div class=3D"im" s=
tyle=3D"color: rgb(80, 0, 80); "><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D=
"margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.8ex=
; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-lef=
t-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex; ">
<font class=3D"Apple-style-span" color=3D"#000000"><br></font></blockquote>=
</div></span></div><div>&gt; Among the interesting candidates elected were:=
</div><div>&gt; *Corneliu Vadim Tudor, the=A0Greater Romania Party leader a=
nd former court poet to=A0</div>
<div>&gt; Nicolae Ceausescu</div><div>&gt; *Gigi Becali, also running with =
Vadim&#39;s party. Becali, an Aromanian, is a barely=A0</div><div>&gt; lite=
rate shepherd who became rich selling land. He owns Steaua, a prominent=A0<=
/div>
<div>&gt; Bucharest football team. The party started regaining support afte=
r he was arrested=A0</div><div>&gt; and detained for a while recently, for =
having himself detained a man in his house for=A0</div><div>&gt; some silly=
 reason (stealing his car, maybe).</div>
<div><br></div><div>exactly, it&#39;s a circus</div><div><br></div><div>&gt=
; *Norica Nicolai, the prosecutor appointed Justice Minister by former PM T=
ariceanu=A0</div><div>&gt; and denied the spot by President Basescu in a bi=
tter constitutional struggle</div>
<div><br></div><div>The point of contention was that [president] Basescu ob=
jected to her becoming minister of justice because during the communist reg=
ime at least on one well-documented occasion she, as a judge, condemned a d=
issident persecuted by the Securitate.</div>
<div><br></div><div>&gt; *Adrian Severin, steely-eyed apparatchik (<a href=
=3D"http://www.cdep.ro/parlamentari/l2004/mari/SeverinAdrian.jpg" target=3D=
"_blank" style=3D"color: rgb(42, 93, 176); ">http://www.cdep.ro/parlamentar=
i/l2004/mari/SeverinAdrian.jpg</a>)</div>
<div><br></div><div>Interestingly, he is one of the few social-democrats th=
at <i>no longer </i>steals. He is interested to have a good name and for hi=
s ego he is prepared to do good things.</div><div><br></div><div>&gt; *L=E1=
szl=F3 T=F5k=E9s, Calvinist bishop and probable espionage agent for the Hun=
garian spy &gt; service</div>
<div><br></div><div>He is part of the brain, not a low-level agent. Basical=
ly, currently his only concern is to somehow contribute to distancing Hunga=
rian minority from Romania. And he is largely successful in that. He simply=
 doesn&#39;t care about any other issues. You can compare him to M.K. in WP=
: he would sell you 10 times to the Soviets or to whomever possible, even i=
f his cause is hurt by them.</div>
<div><br></div><div>&gt; *Monica Macovei, irksome civil society type (I sha=
ll not forget her having allowed=A0</div><div>&gt; Romania&#39;s first homo=
sexual parade and her pressing to eliminate the ban on=A0</div><div>&gt; so=
domy)</div>
<div><br></div><div>Actually, this is news to me. She was a human rights ac=
tivist before 2004, then she was minister of justice for 2 years, trying th=
e most radical reform of the Romanian justice system in history. The result=
s of her action was the creation in 2006-2007 of the Black Coalition: Socia=
l-Decocrats (including those close to Iliescu and those trying to distancia=
te from him) with National-Liberals (which is basically the party of succes=
sful post-communist businessmen and their clients, with totally different e=
conomic thing in mind that the Social-Democrats), with the Hungarian minori=
ty party, with the anti-Hungarian Greater Romania Party in order to take do=
wn Monica Macovei and her defender president Traian Basescu. They succeded =
to take her down, but the referendum against Basescu failed by a 25% to 75%=
 margin. To their undoing, the population rallied behind Basescu (never bef=
ore 1996 there were 80,000 demonstations), and the consequence of that is t=
he change in government that occurred after the election last December: Nat=
ional-Liberals+Hungarian minority which formed a minority government in 200=
6-2008 barely got 20% altogether, Social-democrats were for the first time =
the second party, and Greater Romania Vadim circus did not pass the thresho=
ld. Now, I don&#39;t want to imply that the other remaining party, Demorati=
c-Liberals, are clean. But the events brought them infusion of new blood, e=
specially from among the independents and the former Liberal-Democratic fra=
ction (which was a tiny group, but was ideologically and politically conseq=
uent, and being small almost didn&#39;t have any corrupt people). The old g=
uard of the Democratic Party had to conceed to this because for the first t=
ime another party managed to overtake the former communists in the first pl=
ace. A good portion of the candidates for European Parliament they ran now =
became members of the party days before in order to be able legally to run:=
 Macovei, Preda, Ungureanu, etc.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Christian, don&#39;t get me wrong: I also don&#39;t lik=
e gay fests (I believe they should be held only indoors), but this is hardl=
y an issue in Romania, where 90% of the population is openly anti-gay.</div=
>
<div><br></div><div class=3D"gmail_quote"><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote"=
 style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">A=
ctually, George Sabin Cuta=BA =A0seems to have got a seat in EP: he was<br>
no. 8 in the PSD- PC alliance list<br>
<a href=3D"http://www.partidulconservator.ro/?a=3D1688" target=3D"_blank">h=
ttp://www.partidulconservator.ro/?a=3D1688</a> - and that cartel got 11<br>
seats. This leaves the intriguing question open, which faction he<br>
would (could!) =A0join there.<br>
<br>
Do you know anyone who supports the Conservative Party? Is it just a<br>
one-man enterprise with no authentic ideology (as, incidentally<br>
Estonia&#39;s Soc dems who used to have no authentic ideology apart from<br=
>
vague pro-reform/ centre-right positions)<br>
<font color=3D"#888888"><br>
M.<br>
</font><div><div></div><div class=3D"h5"><br>
<br>
On 09/06/2009, Christian Suciu &lt;<a href=3D"mailto:christiansuciu@yahoo.c=
om">christiansuciu@yahoo.com</a>&gt; wrote:<br>
&gt; Yes, the Conservatives are in an alliance with the Social Democrats. (=
Odd,<br>
&gt; no? But Romanian politics isn&#39;t really about ideology.) I don&#39;=
t think any of<br>
&gt; the MEPs elected is a member - even in Parliament, of 163 Socialists a=
nd<br>
&gt; Conservatives, just 5 belong to the latter party. It would probably be=
 dying<br>
&gt; out were it not for the alliance, and even so, I could see it being ab=
sorbed<br>
&gt; one of these days. Though its multimillionaire leader does like the au=
ra of<br>
&gt; being a party boss.</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Yes, S=
ocial-Democrats are in alliance with a tiny party that changed its name a c=
ouple years ago to Conservative in an attempt to get attention (historical =
Romanian Conservative Party ruled before WWI). That party, led by Dan Voicu=
lescu (a former foreign trade agent of Ceausescu, who had several millions =
of communist party money in 1989, when for one dollar you could buy anythin=
g) barely has any members. Generally these are the employees of the compani=
es of Voiculescu and his cartel, underqualified (but honest as people) indi=
viduals who appreciate their much higher than average salary. For example i=
n the construction industry. But of curse many more othres. Voiculescu owes=
 Antena 1, 2 and 3 TV stations, which are the main anti-Basescu media outle=
ts. Voiculescu and National-Liberals are ideologically well-alined, except =
that Voiculescu has an ace - he has some way to exercise leverage upon the =
Social-democratic leadership, and prefers to use it for own good, not to sh=
are it with Tariceanu, Antonescu and other National-Liberals, which just as=
 him defend the interest of big businesses (people that became suddenly ver=
y rich after 1989 and want all investigations to stop).</div>
<div>=A0</div><div>If you notice, there are no &quot;European themes&quot; =
mentioned above, which is exactly as in reality in Romania</div><div>.</div=
><div>Dorin</div><div><br></div></div>

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