Klaus „Bad luck” Iohannis

July 4 was supposed to be the climax of Klaus Iohannis’s two mandates, which have otherwise been devoid of substance. An almost royal ceremony at Cotroceni Palace for the promulgation of education laws, laws made exclusively for the insiders of the system, was marred by the president and his entourage. The Ministry of Education mistakenly published the results of the National Evaluation, and the presence of the Constitutional Court judges raised questions about the fairness of last week’s decision.

Look at the photograph of the president parading with the two promulgation decrees. There’s an additional character there. It’s Marian Enache, the president of the Constitutional Court. What was he doing at a purely political ceremony without any institutional relevance? What were the other judges of the Constitutional Court doing at Cotroceni, caught up in the breeding ground of rectors and directors benefiting from these laws?

We have no official explanation; Cotroceni Palace does not communicate during Iohannis’s mandate. But we know that this Constitutional Court, which the president could comfortably call „his court,” following the model of „his government,” helped him by swiftly rejecting the constitutional challenge to the education laws filed by USR and Forța Dreptei. Constitutional law experts say that the decision of the Constitutional Court is incomprehensible, unacceptable, at least in one aspect: the segregation of high school students by prestigious national colleges.

In this context, the presence of the Constitutional Court judges at Cotroceni appears as an institutional indecency, a recognition of a subordinate relationship to a political actor. The phrase „no one is above the law” no longer holds true in reality when the Court is populated by vulnerable judges like Bogdan Licu or Giani Stan.

The second episode that completely spoiled the ceremony of nothingness was the chaos caused by the Ministry of Education, which mistakenly published the ranking of the 150,000 children who took the National Examination. The ministry, led by Ligia Deca, a creation of Klaus Iohannis, published an erroneous ranking because it confused the criteria for differentiation.

This error has upset the parents of 150,000 children and further eroded trust in the state. If this state is unable to solve a simple problem like ranking the results of an exam, what confidence can parents have in automatic placement in high schools, for example?

Normally, such a blunder would result in at least a resignation at the top of the ministry. So far, it hasn’t happened. Except for a few independent websites, television stations have ignored the issue. These are the same television stations paid hefty sums by political parties to remain silent.

However, the education counter-reform was expected after the same president included the largest teachers’ strike in the past 18 years in his list of achievements, with tens of thousands of educators marching through Bucharest and major cities demanding decent salaries. Quite an achievement for a former teacher turned head of state.

Moreover, under Iohannis’s mandates, Romania has consistently set negative records in education every year. For example, the number of schools with no graduates passing the Baccalaureate exam has doubled in the last four years, as discovered by Edupedu.ro.

Furthermore, this year, the number of actual school days has plummeted due to the decisions of the president and the government: more frequent vacations, additional public holidays, bridging days connecting these holidays, days dedicated to national exam simulations, „Different School” and „Green Week” programs, and strikes.

Not only is Romania poorly educated, but its leaders promoted by the president are as well. The leader of the Liberals installed by the president faces plagiarism accusations, as does the former Minister of Internal Affairs, who was the party’s number two until recently. Under