June 15, 2004
A Short Guide to the Parties: PUR
A few days ago, a commentor asked what the differences were between Romania's major parties.
The short answer is: not much.
Oh, there are differences. But the three major parties -- PSD, the Democrats, and the Liberals -- all seem to be rather similar. They're all more about personalities and factions than ideology. They all have a lot of very turbulent internal politics. In practice (as opposed to what they publicly say) they're all rather interventionist with regard to the economy, moderately nationalist, and not overly worried about things like press freedom and due process. They've all made European integration a top priority. And they're all top-heavy with former Communists.
Still, there are some real differences. So let's take a look at some of the parties in a little detail.
For this first post, I want to look at a party that isn't one of the major parties, but that I find interesting anyway: the Humanist Party of Romania, or PUR.
PUR -- Partidual Umanist Romanei -- is entirely the creation of one man, Dan Voiculescu. Voiculescu is a wealthy businessman who used to be involved in Romania's arms export trade back in Ceaucescu's day. He's still involved in the arms trade today (yes, Romania is still a major weapons manufacturer), but now he also owns a media empire that includes a private television station (Antenna One), a publishing house, a couple of radio channels, and a newspaper (Jurnalul National).
Voiculescu is an interesting fellow. Everyone seems to believe that he was once rather high in the Securitate, Ceaucescu's secret police. Normally this would not make for a very positive image. But his media group has gained a reputation for being willing to talk frankly about corruption and to sharply criticize the government (sometimes). Jurnalul National, in particular, has a rather sarcastic, snarky attitude that a lot of people find appealing. So most people seem to have a rather neutral or even slightly positive opinion of Voiculescu.
It's not entirely clear to me what PUR stands for, or why people vote for it. It does have a platform, but that's not much help: "middle class, small and middle enterprisers supporting, value, human being, the youth, family, dignity, fight against corruption". In practice PUR seems to be vaguely pro-business and technocratic, but I'd hesitate to say they had a consistent program.
Oh, and: "pur" is Romanian for "clean". If that helps.
Still, PUR does consistently get about 5%-6% of the vote nationwide. They've got representatives in both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, and they've elected Mayors in several large towns and cities.
From 2000 to 2003, PUR was part of the government, as a minority partner to PSD. In the summer of 2003, though, PSD booted PUR out. Because of defections -- legislators bolting from the opposition parties to join PSD -- they had picked up so many votes in Parliament that they no longer needed PUR.
In fact, quite a few of these defections came from PUR itself. PUR started with 12 deputies in the Chamber and 4 Senators. As of June 1, 8 of the 12 Deputies and all four of the Senators had defected to PSD. Romania's elected representatives seem to change parties very easily, but these are heavy losses ; it seems like PUR's legislators have been particularly faithless and fickle even by the loose standards of the Romanian legislature. I'm not sure why.
So PUR has been in opposition since last year. It's widely believed, though -- despite loud denials on PUR's part -- that PUR is just waiting to rejoin the government again, especially if the November elections reduce PSD's majority. Certainly Voiculescu has not hesitated to appear in public with Prime Minister Nastase.
I'm not really sure what Voiculescu wants. He has managed to build a pretty successful small party, basically on the back of his media empire and a vague image of can-do competence. So it looks like PUR will continue taking 5% or so of the votes for as long as Voiculescu stays interested. But what's the point of it all? I don't know, but I welcome any thoughts from our Romanian readers.
Odd fact for American readers: Voiculescu has hired Dick Morris, former advisor to President Clinton, as a political consultant.
Posted by douglas at June 15, 2004 04:15 PM"successful small party, on... a vague image of can-do competence"?
PUR - row!
(as in, "Ross...")
PUR ? Hmm..
First of all, Voiculescu is hardly clean, since much of his media empire (net worth: about 300 million dollars) is based in money he got by having access to Ceausescu's abroad accounts after his death.
Secondly, Antena 1 is, like all national TV stations in Romanian, doing everything the government wants. Yesterday, they had a talk-show in which PM Nastase spoke about the "achievements" of his government.
You may be wondering what is the reason all TV stations are doing this ? Money ! All of them
are not profitable and have imense debts (tens of millions of dollars) and all of them received from the government "help" in paying their debts (no penalties, erasing their debts or even petty cash). A wrong move (as in being objective) would mean bankruptcy and they all know. There was a "Reporters Sans Frontiers" report about this.
Like most parties in Romania, they don't have other agenda than enriching their members. No program means that they can choose whatever partners they want, without caring about where on the political spectrum they are. :-)
There's a another small party that seems interesting, but it is ignored by all media:
URR