December 17, 2004
Cosma and Iliescu
Miron Cosma is in Timisoara today, after departing the high security prison in Rahova.
Foreign readers may wonder what all the fuss is about. It's a little hard to put Cosma in a Western European or American context. Cosma is much more than just a union leader. He's a political player with heavy connections to Romania's shady business elite. Maybe more important, he's also a media star. For years he had a relationship with the Romanian pop star Marinela Nitu. It's more than a little reminiscent of the Arkan-Ceca relationship in Serbia, although (1) Arkan killed a lot more people, and (2) Nitu had the good sense to dump Cosma a year or two back.
So Cosma is still an important figure. Even after five years in prison, he still can inspire (depending on where you stand politically) fear, loathing, or admiration.
A lot of people say they're worried that PSD, or at least Iliescu, may try to use the miners again. This seems unlikely to me; Romania has come a long way since then. But certainly the horrible events of 1990-91 -- when the miners ran wild through central Bucharest for days, beating and killing student protestors, and attacking the houses and offices of opposition leaders -- are still fresh in the collective memory.
Pardoning Cosma wasn't Iliescu's only act on his last day in office. He also pardoned 44 other people, including the former deputy director of police in Timisoara county, who was convicted of ordering the killing of protestors during the 1989 Revolution.
Oh, and he also awarded a medal to Corneliu Vadim Tudor, the leader of the Greater Romania Party. (I'm not really sure why.) Nobel Prize Winner Elie Wiesel, who was born in Romania, promptly announced that he was giving back the medal he'd recieved from Iliescu some years earlier, since he didn't care to share it with a known anti-Semite and Holocaust denier.
Iliescu has left Cotroceni Palace (new President Basescu was inaugurated yesterday), but he'll still be around. He has a seat in the Senate, and he may be the next President of the Social Democrat Party.
Posted by douglas at December 17, 2004 01:06 PMit ain't over till it's over. :)
Posted by: Dragos at December 17, 2004 02:12 PMI'm surprised by the Tudor move. Please: correct me if I'm wrong. But weren't these guys at each other's throats four years ago?
~ Connor
Posted by: Connor at December 17, 2004 06:36 PMWell how long was the sentence for M. Cosma that was just commuted?
and completely OT but, Marinela Nitu, my my what a hard face. Silicone injections have made it to the Balkans I see.
I'm surprised by the Tudor move. Please: correct me if I'm wrong. But weren't these guys at each other's throats four years ago?
Iliescu won the Presidency in 2000 by defeating Tudor, yes. But it was an easy win, because Tudor was just too far out there -- Iliescu beat him by about 2 to 1.
There's a theory that Iliescu and Tudor were always allied. Under this theory, Iliescu used Tudor as a stalking horse and a straw man -- "see, this is what you'll get if you don't go with me and my moderate, reasonable friends" -- and also as a tool to divide the opposition, and to make attacks that he couldn't himself.
This may be a bit conspiratorial for Western tastes. But on the other hand, using fake "enemy" parties to divide the opposition is a very common post-Communist trick; it has been SOP in the Ukraine, for instance. And in the recent presidential campaign here, it was very noticeable that Tudor saved his most vicious attacks for Basescu, while leaving Nastase mostly alone.
Keep in mind that Iliescu and Tudor are from very similar backgrounds, just one generation apart (Iliescu is 75, Tudor is 54). Iliescu had been close to Ceausescu from the late '60s until he fell from favor around 1980, while Tudor had been the Ceausescu's court poet right up until the Revolution.
Sir Francis: Cosma got an 18 year sentence, of which he had served five years.
Nitu: among people who can afford it, plastic surgery seems pretty common here. Particularly among pop stars and such.
Doug M.
Thanks for the explanation. It makes sense to me.
"This may be a bit conspiratorial for Western tastes. But on the other hand, using fake "enemy" parties to divide the opposition is a very common post-Communist trick; it has been SOP in the Ukraine, for instance."
I don't think it's strictly a post-Communist thing. While I don't know that Nader's 2000 presidential bid had the intention of swinging the election (which it "did"), the Bush camp was definitely cheering.
But I know that isn't the discussion here. How did Tudor come to run against Iliescu in 2000 in the first place?
(Sorry if my questions are irritatingly simple. I'm still a neophyte to Romanian politics.)
~ Connor
Posted by: Connor at December 17, 2004 10:23 PMI gotta agree with Francis. I hope that's just from a bad match of lighting and make-up.
Posted by: Carlos at December 18, 2004 02:57 AMI don't think it's strictly a post-Communist thing. While I don't know that Nader's 2000 presidential bid had the intention of swinging the election (which it "did"), the Bush camp was definitely cheering.
Now imagine that Nader had been completely financed by the Bush family and some close friends.
More like that.
But I know that isn't the discussion here. How did Tudor come to run against Iliescu in 2000 in the first place?
Romania -- along with France, Serbia, the Ukraine, and several other countries in Europe -- has the two-round system of Presidential elections. In the first round, all candidates run against each other. If nobody gets at least 50%, then the two candidates with the most votes go to a runoff election two weeks later.
This is one of those systems that sounds sensible, but can lead to weird results in practice. Frex, in the first round there are usually a lot of candidates. (Romania had something like 24.) So, the vote gets split a lot of ways. This can result in some unexpected candidates advancing to the second round. Nationalist and populist candidates are particularly likely to succeed here, because they can often hold together a solid 15% or 20%... and in a race with 20 candidates, that's enough to win second place.
That's how obnoxious racist far-right xenophobe Le Pen became the second-round candidate for President of France a few years back: the vote got really splintered, and he squeaked in a couple of points ahead of the guy everyone thought would be #2. -- It's also how obnoxious racist xenophobe David Duke got a shot at becoming governor of Louisiana; they have that same system.
So, in Romania in 2000, Tudor came second in the first round. Which some people think was exactly what Iliescu wanted, because Tudor was so odious and so extreme that he was really easy for Iliescu to defeat in the second round. Which he did, by something like 68 to 32.
More clear now?
Doug M.
Thanks.
Posted by: Connor at December 18, 2004 04:34 PMwell put, doug. thanks for the election coverage. beats what i read on reuters...
Posted by: Raoul Djukanovic at December 18, 2004 06:33 PM>But wait...Theres more!
>Click Me
>Posted by Larry at December 19, 2004 05:53 PM
Is that a mullet or is _that_ a mullet?
[ok,ok other more intelligent people can be the serious ones, I'll stick with shallow when I know I am out of my depth]
Posted by: Francis Burdett at December 23, 2004 01:18 AM