Strasbourg, 19/01/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 19 January, the president of the Party of European Socialists, Sergei Stanishev, called on the Romanian government to “respect basic democratic standards and urge them to commit to a technical system which allows for free and fair elections at the earliest available opportunity”. He expressed his support for the Romanian Social Democratic Party and the “thousands” of Romanians who have been demonstrating for several days to demand the resignation of the centre-right government of President Traian Basescu.
“Romania has been the victim of a gradual, but systematic destruction of democratic institutions and mechanisms, in a manner strikingly similar to that in Hungary”, explained Stanishev. The leader of the PES underlined “the postponement of the local elections until the national parliamentary election attempts to privatise the healthcare system; 14 national laws adopted without any public debate; significant changes to the legal code without any parliamentary oversight, and openly acknowledged and unpunished electoral fraud in regional elections.”
More than 20,000 people demonstrated on Monday 16 and Tuesday 17 January to demand the resignation of the government and president. Rallies began on Thursday 12 January, following the forced resignation of the founder of the emergency services, Read Arafat, who has since been offered his job back as the under-secretary of state for health. He was fired after a dispute with the president on the future of the health service, after the latter proposed privatisation of the social protection system. (CG/transl.fl)