PRESS RELEASE

Mr. Adrian Nastase, we say it out loud
you have no right to transform Romania into a Balkans' Belarus

After installing economical control in administration, economy and justice, PSD, though its president, Mr. Adrian Nastase, moves to solving the final "problem" of Romania: throne successionThe end of last week brought about an absolutely amazing declaration of Romania's prime, Mr. Adrian Nastase, who overtly expressed the wish that Mr. Iliescu should stay, for one more term, as president. And, in order to reach this wish, our prime minister didn't leave aside constitutional changes. Nastase's declarations have been widely discussed by politicians and by commentors, in the latest days’ news. These declarations are extremely dangerous for Romanian democracy and we state that they should be considered beyond political "subtleties" and basements of palace confrontations between the prime minister and the president, which are constantly referred to.

Mr. Adrian Nastase, as prime minister or "mere citizen", as he candidly called himself in the interview given to "România libera" daily newspaper) has no right to treat Romanian Constitution as a simple means in reaching his political ambitions. Changing the fundamental law in order to ensure the political future of character or interest group (whether political, economical or of other nature) is characteristic to totalitarian regimes and under no means to a presumably democratic state willing to join EU and NATO.

May we remind you here Mr. Adrian Nastase, the names of some of the countries whose regimes made use of constitutional changes or so called popular debates so that their state rulers be able to prolong their terms: Milosevic's Yugoslavia, Lukasenko's Belarus, Saddam's Iraq, Castro's Cuba, Niazov's Turkmenistan.
And we will speak out: you have no right to turn Romania into a Belarus of the Balcanilor, just for the sake of making good relations between you, your comrades and the current ruler. You have no right to jeopardize the future of the younger generation in this country, by ruling party gerontocracy into our Constitution just so that you may quench your power thirst! Is it that you already consider yourself a winner of the elections and your only problem remains power division after 2004?

The motivation waved by Mr. Nastase - the danger of Vadim Tudor's rising - simply will not work. The rise of the PRM leader - a character invented and blown great by the very party Mr. Nastase is a part of - is closely connected to "the achievements" of current government. This so called ascension wouldn’t be real if the so widely celebrated economical rise and the whole fuss around the rise of living standard would have any correspondent in Romanians' everyday life. But, as Nastase government prospers and outruns itself in creating more and more "generous" social programs, poverty uncovers its teeth wider, inequalities grow deeper, and frustrations accumulate.

If we follow Mr. Nastase's performance since he took power, a necessity rises: to include in the Constitution another chapter, referring to the obligation of the prime minister to offer Romanians - in exchange for the salary he receives from their money - something more than communist reflexes, IQ tests for the press, ironies and dry stylistic subtleties.

Cosmin Alexandru
President, Union for the Reconstruction of Romania - URR