The anti-democratic blitzkrieg of the USL 2 / The similarities with the USL coup of 2012

The Cîțu faction in the PNL, and President Klaus Iohannis in perfect sync with Marcel Ciolacu’s PSD are orchestrating a chaotic attack on the rule of law similar to the 2012 attack meticulously planned by the Social-Liberal Union (USL) to suspend Traian Băsescu. Back then, the former USL, led by Ponta and Antonescu, through a succession of moves suspended a series of fundamental institutions in an attempt to seize all power in the state.

Now Cîțu and Iohannis, with the support of the PSD, are suspending the opposition’s constitutional right to table a motion of no confidence, so as to keep Florin Cîțu in the Victoria Palace until the Congress on the 25th of September. If he does not run in the internal elections from the position of prime minister, his chances of being elected leader of the PNL will dramatically decrease. And Florin Cîțu cannot be replaced now as candidate.

Of course, the two moments are different in scope and gravity; while in 2012 everything was premeditated, now things are rather chaotic. But any attack on democracy must be reported and sanctioned as such.

Using whatever weapon they can get their hands on, Cîțu and Iohannis seem determined to delay the reading and the debate of the motion of no confidence tabled on Friday by USR PLUS and AUR. To achieve their goal, the liberals in Cîțu’s camp have allied themselves with the PSD in parliament, boycotting four times the meeting of Parliament’s leadership, which should have set the timetable for the reading and the debate of the motion.

This profoundly anti-democratic action, this abuse of power, which is more typical of banana republics, was endorsed by President Klaus Iohannis. Since the beginning of the political crisis, the Head of State has abdicated his main duty conferred upon him by Article 80 of the Constitution: „The President of Romania shall ensure respect for the Constitution and the proper functioning of public authorities. To this end, the President shall exercise the function of mediator between the powers of the state and between the state and society.”

He did not watch over, he did not keep awake, but rather conducted a wake of the Constitution, and he only mediated with Prime Minister Cîțu, he encouraged and supported him in his desperate actions to keep himself in power at all costs. In the political DNA of President Klaus Iohannis there are traces of the first USL. It is not for nothing that he was nominated for Prime Minister in 2009 by the very two parties that today have once again joined hands to organize a new anti-democratic blitzkrieg.

The image that Romania is projecting abroad is, once again, a disastrous one: a party considered reformist and pro-European is contextually allied with an extremist, xenophobic and homophobic party to bring down the government. In response, the head of state, the prime minister and, of all things, the main opposition party are also joining forces to block any attempt to remove the prime minister by temporarily suspending the laws and the Constitution.

These dangerous actions, unworthy of an EU Member State, should prompt a firm response from the European Commission, from Romania’s Western allies. Such anti-democratic blunders once again place Romania alongside Europe’s problem states, such as Hungary and Poland. We have barely managed to break away from this noxious pack, and in just two years since the fall of the Dragnea regime we are falling back in.

The blitzkrieg to rescue Prime Minister Cîțu should seriously call into question even Klaus Iohannis’s ambitions to have a European career after the end of his term as president. There is nothing European about the arbitrary way he is exercising power these days. Is this what normal Romania looks like?

The political crisis has already gone far, far too far. This madness must immediately be stopped. End the crisis as soon as possible and urgently return to the respect of the law and the Constitution!

Traducerea: Ovidiu Harfas / G4Media.ro