By Modeste Schwartz, French author living in Transylvania, Romania.
If you follow the mainstream narrative, right wing parties have ruled Romania most of the time since 2004. As to what “right wing parties” might possibly refer to in the neo-colonial situation of post-1990 Romania, this is, of course, a carefully avoided question.
What could the “right” possibly mean in a country where Occidentalism is de facto the only ideology of the diverse party-like conglomerates opposing the Social-Democrat Party (PSD), heir to the former one-party system of N. Ceaușescu? As a matter of fact, so-called “right-wing politics” in Romania began exactly at the point where Western-European conservative parties ended before their final defeat: in total oblivion of sovereignty, national pride and traditional values. The economics of “right-wing parties” in Romania are equal to underwriting whatever neo-liberal policies come posted from Brussels. Their social policies mean blind acceptance of any cultural revolution proposed by the Soros galaxy and its LGBT stooges. And their foreign policy consists of demonizing Russia to the exact extent required by NATO circles, even more so than countries (otherwise loyal NATO-allies) such as Hungary or France.
In such conditions, interpreting the imperial come-back of the PSD last December as a “turn to the left” might be true as far as fiscal and redistribution policies are concerned, but totally misses the essence of what is happening under our very eyes in Romania. Indeed, Romanian voters not only shunned the governing “liberal” party of president Johannis, not only did they bring back to power the PSD ruled by L. Dragnea (who, though a “socialist leader”, famously said last fall that he considered that “family has to be defined as the alliance of a man and a woman”) – they also largely rejected most of the right- and left-wing ideologies which dominate the media spectrum in present-day Europe. Test-balloon “nationalist” parties such as the Alianța Noastră, which tried to capitalize politically on Orthodoxy, or the xenophobic Party of United Romania (PRU), which rather endeavoured to scapegoat the Hungarian minority, did not even reach the representation-threshold, while the Soros-supported ultra-liberal USR (a strange, Ukraine-like combination of nationalists and “social justice warriors”), in spite of massive media support, barely reached 10%.
Beyond “right” and “left”, the come-back of PSD in Romania really means that the country is finally returning to normality. Romanians (though not massively participating in the elections) returned to power the only party – call it “right” or “left”, you’ll be wrong either way – which actually represents their nation, with its ample network of local offices and representatives, generally the only ones with a real presence in rural Romania. The still-born USR, with its 10%, is the true reflection of the only kind of bourgeoisie Romania ever had since the fall of N. Ceaușescu: a typical compradores-bourgeoisie, feeding on NGOs financed by the West, on the extractive activities of Western multinational corporations and on the devastating brain-drain which turns the country into a ghetto for those unable to emigrate (elderly and under-qualified people, peasants, Gypsies). This bourgeoisie, unlike the Hungarian bourgeoisie, is unlikely to ever become the basis of a patriotic movement, since its class interests are totally opposed to those of the popular layers surviving under the economical oppression of the very Western European states who financed the emergence of USR. As for former president T. Băsescu, once the leader of the Romanian “Orange Revolution”, his party also finished beneath the representation-threshold.
Thus, interpreting the rejection by president Johannis of Mrs. Sevil Shhaideh, a PSD MP from the Turkish-speaking minority of Dobrogea, who was the PSD’s first Prime-Minister proposal, as “the Romanian right fighting back against multi-culturalism” is totally erroneous. As a matter of fact, in a country where Orthodox Christians represent 80% of the population (and close to 90% of the Romanian-speaking population), Johannis himself, hero of the “Romanian right”, was, as a member of the small Lutheran Saxon minority, the biggest slap to the face ever inflicted upon Romanian national pride by the globalist elites. Hence, viewing his (otherwise anti-constitutional) refusal as some kind of defence of “Christian Europe” against “imposed diversity” is quite a ludicrous idea. If motivated by anything other than illegal opposition to a democratic process, his refusal was most probably (though not officially) linked to the personality of Shhaideh’s husband, a pro-Assad Syrian citizen. Johannis and his “technocratic” (eurocratic) government, by the way, enjoyed the support of USR, in which most party leaders are members of national minorities, or even immigrants, such as the very popular Clotilde Armand – a French-Romanian woman who unsuccessfully ran for mayor in Bucharest last year.
Those willing at any price to categorize the now ruling PSD in accordance with Western political denominations will have a hard time doing so. PSD is a broad alliance typical of Third-World countries, including all kinds of political sensibilities, from outright globalist/feminist liberals such as Euro-MP Corina Crețu to former national-communist Olguța Vasilescu (a former member of the Great Romania Party lead by the late Vadim Tudor), but also a lot of more or less apolitical, more or less corrupt, but also very often honest and dedicated local representatives, mainly characterized by the family values and (Orthodox Christian) religious views of rural Romania.
Compared to this ideologically rather undefined, but socially and culturally homogeneous, organic party, the so-called “right wing parties” in Romania – which tend to switch names and slogans before every election and to recompose every six months in the wake of newer and newer scandals – have only a few things in common, and those things hardly qualify for elements of a bona fide “conservative” identity: they are socially anchored in big cities, and propagate a clearly anti-popular and anti-national discourse, based on portraying rural Romanians pretty much the way leftist politicians and mainstream media in Western Europe see Marine Le Pen’s voters or the Brits who voted for BREXIT: as illiterate, “deplorable” rednecks, wife-beaters and bigots. Strangely enough (though this detail can hardly surprise those familiar with the Ukrainian post-Maidan nightmare), this utterly anti-national “right” is also home to some bona fide neo-Nazis, such as those coagulating around the website În linia dreaptă – a shameful alliance to which Western sponsors of the “Romanian right”, however, turn a blind eye, due to the conveniently Russo-phobic rhetoric of such circles.
To sum up, one might say that PSD, corrupt and amorphous as it is, remains the party of the real Romania, while the so-called “Romanian right” is a miscellanea of all globalist ideologies available on the European political market, from the LGBT crusaders to those cultivating the nostalgia of Operation Barbarossa.
Thus, though the December elections did not bring new forces to power, and failed to create renewed interest of the masses for Romanian political life, they are still a very true local echo to what happened in the UK and the USA, but also in Bulgaria and Moldova in 2016: by returning PSD to power, Romanian voters expressed a clear rejection of the so-called “Euro-Atlantic values” which Romanian mainstream media have been using for more than 20 years as an omnibus excuse for deindustrialization, massive unemployment, neo-colonial resource-grabbing and the devastating brain drain in favor of Western countries (Romania is the only peaceful country constantly losing more of its population to emigration than does war-ridden Syria …).
One might of course wonder whether the PSD leaders themselves are aware of the historical importance of the mandate their party received from the nation last December. If so, then, in the view of their angelic patience when confronted with president Johannis’ anti-constitutional provocations (which would have motivated an impeachment process in any respectable democracy), one might also wonder how independent the apparent rulers of Romania are, in the context of the constant blackmailing organized by the CIA-run “anti-corruption tribunal”, in tight collaboration with the (Berlin and Washington-driven) omnipotent secret services.
As for Johannis himself, he represents a quite close local equivalent to the Obama phenomenon in the US: two years before he became, as a last-moment surprise, the presidential candidate of “the right”, Johannis was still a complete unknown to most Romanian voters, who might, in the best case scenario, have heard his name mentioned once or twice in their life, while listening to some radio show on the Saxon minority or on tourism in Transylvania. By that time, he was only the mayor of the city of Sibiu, a picturesque and touristic province town in Transylvania, originally built and inhabited by members of the Saxon minority, but nowadays by over 90% ethnical Romanian, where he was re-elected several times with so-called North-Korean majorities. An almost unanimous press praised his “flawless managing” of the city – without dwelling too much on how could any mayor’s managing have been less than flawless as long as that mayor is sitting on a money-pipeline which spits fresh euros from Germany and Luxemburg by the millions every day. Berlin, indeed, already seemed to have big plans for this son-in-law of a former general of Ceaușescu’s secret police, who, as a mayor, was also suspected of trafficking children to the West. In the middle of a country literally shaven of it’s wonderful mountain forests by the Austrian wood tycoon Schweighoffer, the history of poster child Johannis doing God’s work with Merkel’s money is, indeed, quite exemplary.
In spite of severe suspicions of electoral fraud (feeding on a totally outdated electoral census), his election to the presidency, as every new success of the “Romanian right”, was celebrated as the final victory over “communism” – which seemingly gave him the subjective right to overlook democratic procedures, and, though having no majority in Parliament, to name a “technocratic government” of his own choice to replace V. Ponta’s legitimate government, forced to resign by “spontaneous” street agitation following a horrific tragedy – caused by a suspicious fire – in a Bucharest nightclub.
Last December, however, after two years of political clumsiness and of high-hat laconism slowly getting on the nerves of the Romanian public, and a massive PSD-victory, Johannis could evoke no hipster flambée to justify his a priori refusal to name PSD leader Dragnea to the Prime Minister’s office. His only excuse was that Dragnea, just like former French candidate for president Alain Juppé, had been previously sentenced by a court. The PSD leadership cleverly dodged the punch, proposing, instead of Dragnea, an even more multicultural and politically correct candidate than Johannis himself: Muslim woman Sevil Shhaideh. Refusing her not only cost Johannis a lot of his PC credentials, but also left him with no recourse when faced with PSD’s second proposal, since, by law, he was not allowed to refuse more than one proposal – a second refusal would have triggered the dissolution of parliament and a major political crisis which could have taken from his Liberal National Party even the modest 20% it was still able to harvest in December.
The second proposal was Sorin Grindeanu, a mathematician with alleged ties to the Romanian “intelligence community”, but no court antecedents and a good CV.
Possibly left holding the bag by his Western middle-management still overburdened with calculating the consequences of the Trump-tsunami, Johannis, confronted with the second proposal a few days after Christmas, decided to leave office even before the end of the week and went home to Sibiu to celebrate New Year’s Eve with his wife (and no children), postponing his answer to the first days of 2017. Even citizens who voted for him in 2014 could hardly believe their eyes when they saw their Saxon urban mascot treating the Romanian constitution as a Mississippi cotton-farmer of the 19th century would have reacted to some social unrest among his negro slaves. They started filling social media with angry and/or ironic messages, and Johannis, officially on holidays but apparently still connected, finally lost his temper and changed his mind. And, since he had no official channel at his disposal to communicate his decision, he simply… texted Grindeanu a laconic SMS, faking fair play and familiarity. The message read: “Success! KWJ” (for: Klaus Werner Johannis). As the legend goes, Grindeanu, who did not have Johannis’ number stored in his phone, asked Dragnea what that message could possibly mean, and Dragnea, still holding a grudge on Johannis, quickly leaked the story. Ever since, Romania has become one big joke festival about the Saxon’s SMS: Facebook is full of crowdfunding initiatives to pay the president’s phone bills, so that he can afford to call people instead of messaging them, etc..
In the meantime, details emerged, which might a posteriori lead us to see less clumsiness, but much more cynical shrewdness, in Johannis’ apparently psychotic behavior. Indeed, while their highly civilized but short-worded president seemingly hesitated, travelled in search of lost time and tapped his way into history on a smartphone keyboard, PM Cioloș and his “technocratic” government lost no time, making the best and most technocratic use they could possibly make of the delay Johannis’ clumsiness bought them: funnelling the last remnants of autochthonous industry to Western “investors”, signing unsustainable funding for NATO – for which the new government, unless it goes full-on revolutionary, will have to find money somewhere, borrowing unnecessarily from the World Bank (which, for some reason, is paying former EU-commissar Cioloș an extra salary), and, all in all, leaving a 10 billion euro gap in the state’s budget.
Anxious not to sink too quickly back into the oblivion he should have never left, Johannis, however, came back to work as brazen as ever, and made sure he did not miss the next occasion to trample the constitution, by cracking jokes at the new government during the investiture ceremony, suggesting that it would be all too dependent on Dragnea’s will – in other words: that the new government is (horresco referens) at risk to respect the will of the party democratically elected by the people to rule the country – instead of guiding its steps according to the Washington consensus, the sacred rules of “technocracy” and … the pure Aryan blood of Romania’s dear Gauleiter.
