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Southeast Europe
August 17, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 16
or in the institutions they are supposed to man- age that are specifically designed to cap personal power and make it accountable.
Where Romania differs from, for example, Poland or Hungary is that the agenda of the government doesn’t appear to be driven by idealism, but by the need to protect its politicians from the conse- quences of their past actions.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has re- peatedly expounded his concept of illiberal de- mocracy, first outlining the basic ideas at an infamous address in the Romanian town of Baile Tusnad in 2014 where he claimed to be building an "illiberal state". Speaking to ethnic Hungarians in Romania, the PM declared liberal democracy a failure, and held up Russia, China and Turkey as models for Hungary if it wished to stay competitive globally. Both Russia and China have institutions, as both are simply too large to run on the basis
of personal relations with key officials alone. But they are hybrid models where the client-sponsor relations are key and epitomised in Russia’s “ver- tical power” model. In Turkey’s case the country’s EU ambitions has seen a lot of institution building when the country actually had a chance of joining the EU trade club, but Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is now working hard to undo the power of these institutions and has already ac- cumulated a lot of power in his own hands follow- ing the constitutional changes earlier this year to create an executive presidency.
Four years later, again in a speech to ethnic Hungarians in Baile Tusnad, Orban called for the advent of "Christian democracy”, an ideology he defined as "anti-immigrant" and “anti-multicul- tural”, standing for the Christian family model. "There is liberalism in the West, there is no de- mocracy," said Orban, going on to call the Euro- pean Commission a "symbol of failure."
The ruling Fidesz’ demonisation of immigrants, which was stepped up ahead of the April 2018 election that Orban’s Fidesz won by another supermajority, successfully tapped into the fears
of many Hungarian voters, but was motivated by concerns over and above political expediency.
In Poland, the Law and Justice Party (PiS) that came to power in 2015 has been pursuing a deep- ly conservative agenda, for example in its attacks on abortion rights, at the same time as eroding freedom of the media and embarking on a much criticised overhaul of the justice system.
Romania’s PSD has also toyed with conservative ideas, for example with plans (later dropped) for
a mass rally in support of the “traditional family” and discussions of a referendum against same- sex marriages (not yet scheduled). There popular- ist ideas are the façade behind which attacks on liberal institutions can be mounted, as they are easy to sell to the population.
However, one of the top grievances of the protest- ers in Romania is that the changes there — that they fear could destroy the fight against corrup- tion and distort the justice system —are so bla- tantly motivated by self interest – legalising cor- ruption is a very hard sell indeed.
Specifically, they are seen as benefitting one man: Liviu Dragnea, the leader of the ruling PSD and arguably the most powerful man in the country even though he is barred from holding an official position because of his two criminal convictions.
The decree adopted back in January 2017 set the bar for abuse of office being a criminal offence at damages of RON200,000 (€44,500 at the time); the damages in the case where Dragnea had been in- dicted amounted to RON108,612. Had the decree stood, the charges against the PSD leader would have been dropped. Instead the politician, who had already been issued a suspended sentence
in an earlier case concerning voter manipulation, went on to stand trial and was given a three year, six month prison sentence – the first time such a senior figure has been convicted.
Similarly, the new changes approved in July stipu- late that the offence would be applicable only to public officials whose actions bring benefits to