Romanians Protest Against President, Government

You've Stolen from Us, Lied To Us! Leave!

Thousands of Romanians have been protesting in the major cities of the country for the last three days against the president and the government of the country. The stresser of these spontaneous protests was a health bill, proposed by the president of the country, Traian Basescu, and adopted and promoted by the government.

The protests over the weekend in the capital of the country, Bucharest, degenerated in clashes with the riot police, causing about 50 people to be injured and a lot of damage to be produced. No casualty was reported.

On Sunday night, as a few hundred people were protesting peacefully against the president Traian Basescu and the political party in power, the Democrat Liberal Party, clashes erupted between riot police and  groups of people, later identified as either soccer team supporters or low life hooligans living in the underclass neighborhoods.

They threw stones and slabs at the riot police, which responded with tear gas and robber bullets. Cars were set on fire, a few news stalls were vandalized as the fully geared riot police pushed them out of the center of the city.

Journalists speculated for the main news television channels that the violent people in the streets (which they deemed as “hooligans”) were part of a tactic to discredit the peaceful protests in the country and to prevent people from joining them.

Similar protests, but smaller in scale and peaceful, happened in the country in more than 20 cities. Some believe that they are just getting started, and that in time they will bring more people to the streets, which will protest peacefully against the regime.

Others expect the protests now to die away, due to either the winter conditions or to the lack of mass support, but analysts warn that they could become a trend setter for the next elections, whether they will be snap or massed. The number of protesters is considered far too small to provoke immediate change, other than damaging the approve rate of the party in power, which will cost it in the election day.

A prominent professor at the political studies faculty in Bucharest inferred that what was happening in Romania now was the local phase of the world turmoil which moved from country to country. Some similarities were noted with the unrest in the Arab world last year, the most striking of them being that the protests were organized by the people on Facebook, without any political involvement, as they protest against the entire political establishment, considered corrupted and affiliated with interests that are totally strange to national interest.

On Sunday night, the main opposition parties, grouped in the Social Liberal Union, announced that their supporters will join on Monday the peaceful protests, in solidarity with the people in the streets. The leaders of the opposition demanded an extraordinary session of the Parliament, that snap election be called for March, and that a caretaker government be entrusted with organizing them.

The protests in Romania occur in an election year, with local and general elections expected to happen simultaneously in November. Opposition protests the massing of all polls in one day, and accuse the preparations made by the government to rig them.

The entire situation started last week, as the president of Romania Traian Basescu intervened in a television show which was hosting Raed Arafat, the head of the Emergency, Resuscitation and Extrication Mobile Service, called in Romanian S.M.U.R.D. (Serviciul Mobil pentru Urgenţe, Reanimare şi Descarcerare) and at the time state undersecretary at the Health Ministry.

Raed Arafat, a Syrian-born Palestinian naturalized in Romania, is the man who created S.M.U.R.D. from scratch to one of the most performing emergency mobile medical services in Europe. For that he enjoys a huge appreciation among the Romanians.

In the television show Arafat was explaining why the part of the newly proposed health bill referring to the emergency service was not accurate. The president explained to him, intervening by phone, that if an undersecretary was not in agreement with his minister, than he should resign his commission, which is just what Raed Arafat did a day after.

Arafat’s resignation produced a chain reaction of the population, which took to the streets to show their support and to thank the head of S.M.U.R.D. for everything he did for them and the country. Sooner the protest in favor of Arafat turned into a protest against the president, which is considered to be the cause of his resignation.

The protests moved from Arafat to president Basescu, demanding that he stepped down, and that snap election be called as soon as possible. Romanians are very dissatisfied with the austerity measures imposed by the government, which are supported and even promoted by the president. The most severe such measure was the 25% salary cut in 2010, which the government says prevented Romania from falling in the same pit as Greece and other countries that are now demanding bailout.

There are estimates that the protests in Bucharest last night are the most violent since the intervention of the miners in 1990 to curve the protest of the students in the same place where the protests are organized now.

On Monday, the Romanian Prime Minister Emil Boc offered a statement in which he invited all the political and social forces to dialogue and to resolving the problems by peaceful means. The PM condemned the violence and announced that no such manifestations, which are detrimental to the safety of the people in the streets, would be permitted. He also reassured that the right of the people to peacefully protest would be observed.