Popeye eats spinach

The PD (Democrat Party) is seized with turmoil. President Basescu criticized the leaders of the ivy-party. Without Basescu, the PD is history. Without the PD, Basescu has got no party. The PLD (Liberal Democrat Party) is too much of a substitute to sooth him.
Therefore Basescu got angry and he ordered the PD guys to come to senses and mobilize to get back that 10% of electorate leaving the party. But the real thing to mourn is the 20% the President has lost in terms of citizens' trust. The Gallup pollster has detected it, but the IPP (Public Policy Institute), keen on fooling people, has denied it at once.
President Basescu rebuked and warned the PD leaders, mayor Adriean Videanu in particular. In Cotroceni Palace and in the Democrats' headquarters percentage is all that matters and they would do anything for it. Opinion polls influence people, especially those easy to influence, who make the majority. How come? Easy. The majority goes with the mob. If the mob says Basescu is a rude guy who doesn't want the Romanian retired to lead a good life, everything is finished. If the mob says Basescu is brave and due to him the piles of trash in Popesti-Leordeni vanished away, everything comes back to life again. They notice the cleanness, they don't analyze the method.
People aren't interested in learning the grounds of the macho attitude displayed by the President of the mafia men (in business with trash, concrete, marble, public lights and so on). People just see it is tidy now because of him. They praise the effect, they ignore the cause. Some deviate the President's appeal to the PM and conclude as follows: Tariceanu got mad when he saw the garbage pile, he wanted to do something, but he was unable too, whereas Basescu wanted to do something and he was able to. If they are smart guys, like the lodger of Cotroceni Palace claims, the Liberals shouldn't be relying on the 10% the PM has gained. By Mafia-like good deeds and vendettas of the same kind Basescu and the PD can put an end to the negative trend and get their top positions back due to the fooled Romanians.
People must learn who are President Basescu's luxury garbage men who did the tiding up for more than 1 million Euro. Had they been volunteers, they would have done it without being kindly asked to. Where does the money spent on it come from? How is it accounted for ?
It is to be noticed as well that a President searching through garbage for percentage in opinion polls is a desperate man. But this is the old bluff story: Popoye would eat lots of spinach and strike back, although the enemy had defeated him. Basescu would eat anything to gain his percentages back. And the Liberals seem to be as passive as satisfied cats, as if the significantly decreasing scores of President Basescu and the PD could help them and their candidate to Presidency - who is he/she ? - make constant, strong and irreversible progress. But the PSD isn't asleep.
The presidential resources, the services included, must be disregarded on no account. Basescu is far from having worn out his potential as a President for the Romanians who listen to faked Gypsy music. He is aware that, if he stays just an electoral leader, he can regain only by demonstrative actions. The garbage operation is accompanied by similar populist initiatives. The President took his official suit off and he put on his casual clothes instead. He kisses people while wandering through Romania and he gives precious directions in the places he stops. After a few more local initiatives with immediate effects, due to and performed by his clientele, his score in opinion polls is sure to improve. The President has got debts to pay to groups of interests, legitimate ones, of course, since it is about one more mandate as President ? So what ? Basescu should be assigned to clean the entire country and show he can do it, for his clientele would thus go bankrupt.

Roxana Iordache
Ziua Miercuri 08 August 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english

European ultra nationalists to meet in Bucharest

Corneliu Vadim Tudor, leader of the PRM ("Greater Romania" Party), is arranging a reunion of all the ultra nationalist leaders in Europe in People's House, Bucharest, in an attempt to save his party from collapse and the "Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty" group in the Parliament of Europe from going extinct.
The congress of the European ultra nationalist group known as mentioned above is to take place in the Parliament Palace, Romania, in late September. The PRM officials reached this decision last week in a stormy meeting.
PRM sources claim the party president insisted it should be kept away from the press. They say Corneliu Vadim Tudor wanted it so that the press wouldn't report on well-known "extremists" in Europe coming to Romania to attend the first congress of the "Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty" group. On the other hand, Corneliu Vadim Tudor warned the press had many a time given a hand to a label for the PRM such as "a xenophobe and anti-Semite" party.
According to PRM sources, delegations from all the parties affiliated to the group mentioned above, headed by controversial leaders such as Jean-Marie Le Pen, Alessandra Mussolini or Jorg Heider, are going to attend the event. The British independent deputy Ashley Mote is expected to attend too.
Failure would mean catastrophe
As strategy is in his nature, the PRM head wants it to take place in late September so that it would be close to the election of MEPs from Romania, for which a date hasn't been set yet. This election is crucial to the nationalists in the group mentioned above, because a failure of the PRM in the elections would lead to the dismemberment of the group in the Parliament of Europe headed by Bruno Gollnisch and they would no longer have the necessary number of MEPs.
On the other hand, Corneliu Vadim Tudor is hopeful that a luxurious congress would refresh his party's electorate. Both the PRM and its head have lately lost significant points in opinion polls and the party may fail to make it to the Parliament of Romania.
Dismissed by the EPP
Corneliu Vadim Tudor has many a time tried to build a European look for the PRM. He even struggled to get the party affiliated to the large EPP, but his efforts were fruitless. After some talks in Italy and a visit to the Vatican in 2005, the EPP leaders set some conditions for the PRM to join their group. The first was for Corneliu Vadim Tudor to no longer head the group, because in Europe he was perceived as an extremist and xenophobe leader.
He pretended the PRM was changing and he appointed Corneliu Ciontu a president of the party. But since talks with the EPP were doomed to fail, he got his leadership over the party back and organized a congress, not in keeping with the PRM status, by which Corneliu Ciontu was expelled from the party.
Since the Romanian party was affiliated to any European group, the EPP refused political relations with the PRM. And therefore Corneliu Vadim Tudor has started to court the EU outlaws, now members of the ultra nationalist "Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty" groups.

Razvan Gheorghe
Ziua Miercuri 08 August 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english