IOANA LUPEA: "Gigi Becali left Bucharest the legacy of an electorate in search of candidate."
And not one recommended by Steaua's owner, but a character after his face and resemblance. Sorin Oprescu is a Gigi Becali in a white coat, who wears in stead of the cross a scalpel.
Like Gigi, he pretends that he is fighting with the evil system, even if the first was invented by Viorel Hrebenciuc, and the second by Ion Iliescu. He is deliberately using a colorful language. He is speaking the language of the people. He is miming the absolute honesty, saying that he has nothing to hide. He is telling without inhibitions about his childhood from the neighborhood of the communists favorites, about his friendship with Sorin Ovidiu Vantu and about his lobby for Marian Vanghelie. He invoking God, in a his public appearances. He doesn't forget to mention, piously, at least once:"God rest his soul", "I thank God", "if God wants it".
Like Gigi, he avoids the discussions by withdrawing his arguments from under the control of the present and saying that only the future can confirm them: "At 71-72 years I will be adored by them". He delivers miracles to the losers of transition who want to escape the daily chaos, where all is by chance and nothing certain. The project of the suspended highway, implausible and lacking common sense, didn't come from nowhere. He is insisting on it in order to satisfy the need of this electorate to believe that fiction, coherent in its nature, is accomplish able. The option for science-fictional solution is his riot against reality.
Bucharest was one of the pools from where Gigi Becali was fishing votes in 2006. He collected after 2004, as it is shown by a study made by the Foundation for an Open Society, new voters and electors from Traian Basescu, Adrian Nastase, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, who joined the kernel formed by Steaua's fans. In March 2007, Gigi Becali reached a trust level of 39% in the country, second after Basescu. The referendum for the president's ban polarized the voters, and those of Gigi Becali didn't came back home because of the public conflict with Gica Hagi and of the corruption scandals. It remained, practically, suspended in the expectation of a providential character.
What are the opinions and values of these voters? They are thinking that the country is going in a wrong direction. They are unsatisfied by the way they are living and are showing a chronically distrust in state institutions. I think that the communist ideology would have been a good idea. They are proffering a political system with maximum two parties. They are appreciating a political leader who has the capacity to make order and to fight against corruption, belief in God, accessible language, charitable nature. A candidate "without master", exponent of the communist high society, who is promising the impossible, is speaking the language of the people and the fact that he is a doctor is satisfying their expectations.
The flaw of this electorate is that it is not coming to the polls. Like Gigi Becali, Sorin Oprescu has vote intentions, not votes. He is always sympathized and never elected.