The „Reptile”. The brute force behind the struggle for the amnesty and pardon of thugs

The SDP’s “restitutio ad integrum” operation in the judiciary, aiming to bring the latter to a state of submission and obedience to politics, as it used to be in a time before reforms, is backed by characters of great financial, media and political clout. Dan Voiculescu, Puiu Popoviciu, Alexander Adamescu, and the “Monaco group” are some of the main „sponsors” of the political moves spearheaded by Liviu Dragnea and Darius Vâlcov. Amongst them, Voiculescu is the one with the greatest influence on SDP’s direction, exercised through Antena 3, a metaphorical media bludgeon. For him, personally, several things are at stake: getting revenge for the years spent in jail, scrubbing his criminal record clean, and running for office in the European Parliament in the future.

In order to be able to run for office, he needs a clean criminal record. Only the amnesty and pardon decree can grant this. This is why maximum pressure is exerted on Liviu Dragnea, his natural ally, who also needs to place a yoke on the judiciary. The attacks on Tudorel Toader, vehemently criticized in the Antena 3 studio for the blunder on Augustin Lazar’s revocation request, stem in this strategy. Voiculescu’s people do not care about Lazar’s semi-failed revocation procedure, but they do care about the fact that Tudorel Toader does not want to release the amnesty and pardon emergency decree.

Dan Voiculescu (72 years old, conditionally released after three years in prison on a ten-year prison sentence for corruption) is the de facto owner of the worst instrument of media pressure, Antena 3. Using the Adrian Ursu – Mircea Badea – Mihai Gadea trio, capable of media lynchings of spectacular results, and the online phalanges, Luju.ro and DCNews.ro, always on stand-by to attack, Voiculescu does not choose his targets exclusively on the internal political scene.

Targeting the European Union has become something of a predilection. Against the backdrop of intense Brussels debates on the rule of law in Romania, anti-EU campaigns have reached an unparalleled scale this year.

Antena 3’s unprecedented attacks on the EU are amongst the reasons for the ten percent drop in Romanians’ euro-optimism in October, as compared to April 2018. Gâdea & co describe the EU as a brake on Romania’s full sovereignty. This is a sovereignty that should give thugs free reign, regularize the graft of public money, and destroy the last remnants of the anti-corruption fight, naturally.

Let us not forget Antena 3 campaigns’ effectiveness: they are as virulent as to be worth mentioning in the MCV reports of 2013. Antenna 3 is officially seen as anti-EU and anti-US, also by the United States Embassy, however much it mimics a pro-American stance by twinning with CNN.

Voiculescu’s and his acolytes’ fury against the EU does not stop here. Antena 3′ s innards have also produced the Roexit ideology, preached by the former Secret Information Service colonel, Daniel Dragomir. Dragomir, creator of a tiny party supported by the fugitive Alexander Adamescu, and Lord Voiculescu, are after the same thing: full freedom for the penally convicted. Grivco dictates Dragomir’s and his lieutenants’ speech lines, when it does not directly interfere with Sputnik’s messages.

Voiculescu’s permanent blackmail of the SDP has been working perfectly since 2000, when the “Reptile” tricked Adrian Năstase into keeping his tiny party in Parliament by providing media support. The blackmail is now at its peak: Antena 3 has intensively supported Dragnea since he took over the SDP as its boss, in exchange for the promise of amnesty and pardon. Until it becomes clear whether the energy decree will be enacted or not, Voiculescu will remain in the same boat as the SDP leader. When the decree will appear to be impossible for the SDP leader, Voiculescu will move on to the next politician who will promise the much needed salvation from justice.

Quantifying the damage produced by Voiculescu and his media trust in Romania has become progressively easier. Antena 3 has gradually become Rahova TV: in the TV studios there are dozens of criminals, convicted and undergoing trials, who completely distort public discourse, and turn the value system upside down. The power to suck the minds of millions of Romanians through propaganda and manipulation turns the perpetrator into a clear and present danger for the country’s fragile democracy.

In July 2017, while at the Rahova exit, Dan Voiculescu declared, „I have lost three years of my life, no one will give me back these three years.” For this reason, he probably decided to take them back on his own, destroying all his opponents in the process.

Traducerea: Ruxandra Stoicescu