RODICA CULCER: “It’s no news that most of the Romanian politicians play a cheap act in front of the voters in order to dissemble their real interests and feints.”

Yet when dualism is constantly promoted by the president of the Chamber of Deputies, it’s only right to take a closer look, even if for not leaving the impression that “anything goes” in Romania.

The case I’m reffering to is the relation between Bogdan Olteanu and the Group for Social Dialogue (GDS). On the 4th of March this year, Olteanu sent an public letter in order to reinsure GDS of his total support over keeping the organization’s headquarters in Calea Victoriei boulevard, because the property “had become a symbol in the fight for public debates in Romania”.

This is nice, one could say. Yet this is the second time when Olteanu says one thing and votes the opposite. Last summer, the same dialogue took place between GDS and the Romanian Parliament. GDS asked Olteanu to make sure that the deputies would at least sustain a decision the Government’s decision of maintaining the organization’s headquarters. Meantime, 6 liberal senators out of eight had voted against the Government’s decision. That was also an occasion for Bogdan Olteanu to show his public assertion to the GDS.

Six months later, on the 11th of December 2007, the deputies, lead by the same Bogdan Olteanu, have issued a change in a law, which lead to evicting the GDS from the “symbolic” headquarters.

The GDS is “under siege” since 2006, when parliament members of the Social Democrat Party (PSD) and Great Romania Party (PRM) have issued the so called “youth law”, which transfers a series of properties that used to belong to the Young Communists (UTC) – at 18 years after the disappearance of UTC! – to some obscure National Youth Foundation.

The GDS headquarters was in the list provided by the law even if the property had never belonged to UTC and is now the public property of the Romanian state. After Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu tried to remove this property from the list, liberal, nationalist, conservator, nationalist and socialist members of the Parliament, have replaced the National Youth Foundation with the Council for National and Regional Youth Foundations and left the list intact.

The stratagem that these parties have used has all the elements known from previous more or less legal arrangements that allowed various companies to own properties (preferably in the central area of Bucharest) that used to be state owned. It happened with the help of laws, as it happened with the Romanian Posts property in Calea Victoriei, a law for which the former Minister of Justice, Tudor Chiuariu has signed “as mayor”. Chiuariu is now inquired by the National Anti Corruption Department.

In a lack of inspiration, GDS has launched a campaign that would have saved Tineretului swimming location, just another one of those properties that the Government gave to some friendly investors. That meand too much even for Bogdan Olteanu, who can only be familiar with the real estate interests of the liberals and of the friends in other parties.

Offcourse he would have loved to ensure a clean image of a bold young politician, which he used to own some time ago, along with Adrian Cioroianu (member of the GDS). This image can only be saved now by a veteran civil rights organization so he publicly sends letters of support that would hide his real intentions from the voters.

Unfortunately, the real-estate votes and political stratagems causes a loss both to the civil rights organizations and to Romania as well. These organizations give the only true and constant support to authentic and not “original” democracy.