• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Saturday, May 28, 2022
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Opinion

Romania’s Anti-Corruption Protests: What International Media Miss

Alina Mungiu-Pippidi by Alina Mungiu-Pippidi
08/28/18
in Opinion
A man holds a Romanian national flag during an anti-corruption demonstration in Romania's capital Bucharest.

Photo: Andrei Pungovschi, AFP

77
SHARES
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Central Europe was once seen as poster child of transformation. Czech Republic? Splendid treatment of property restitution. Poland? Wonderful liberal reforms. Hungary? Everybody’s dream – until the frame wore out and transformation stagnated or reversed. Even Romania in Eastern Europe, a latecomer to democracy as it had to recover from the deepest destruction of society that a political regime ever managed to inflict on a European country, was in recent years found good at something: anti-corruption. While Romanians indicate in surveys that corruption has gone up instead of down since joining the E.U., Brussels deems the country’s anti-corruption a big success.

The country of almost 20 million used to be a prosecution success story. By 2018, Romania’s anti-corruption agency DNA had jailed 17 ministers, a former prime minister, and indicted a sitting prime minister. Bulgaria, which also joined E.U. in 2007 on the condition of handling corruption, had done none of the above.

Between 2010 and the end of 2017, Romania passed 4,720 final corruption sentences, an average of nearly 600 convictions per year. In DNA’s chief prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi’s last term, investigations were opened against virtually all of sitting President Klaus Iohannis’ counter candidates.

Romania's former DNA’s chief prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi
Laura Codruta Kovesi was considered a symbol of the fight against corruption in Romania. Photo: Daniel Mihailescu, AFP

Traditionally, the president appointed and dismissed the chief anti-corruption prosecutor in a joint decision with the government, until a constitutional court ruling in July restricted this power. Now the Minister of Justice has almost total control over the appointment. The ruling leaves prosecutors vulnerable to government interference and paves the way for further dismissals.

International Media

The international media often paints a black and white picture of villain politicians and heroic prosecutors. No doubt, the villain politicians are always there. But the heroes are not always what they are supposed to be: the independent Judicial Council (constitutionally elected by judges and prosecutors, the best guarantee of Romania’s judicial independence) recently suspended some of Kovesi’s flagship prosecutors for serious procedural violations.

While tampering of the government parties with judicial independence is rightly feared, little is said on another tampering: the unconstitutional delivery of justice in the arms of Romania’s secret service SRI. Anti-corruption prosecutors depend on the government and, in particular, on the selective evidence that they get from SRI. This evidence has the power to imprison or empower politicians. In Romania, where corruption used to be an everyday activity for everyone, every politician has reason to fear the past, the president included.

Despite Romania’s population being a quarter of Germany’s, the budget for its secret service is larger. In 2015 alone, SRI tapped 40,000 people, 16 times more than the FBI did in the same year. They passed to DNA only what they decided to. According to a recently declassified document, SRI was not even required to disclose that the information they handed to DNA was selective. SRI also unlawfully used evidence obtained on security warrants for corruption files. Because the entire government, parliament, and the top courts were wiretapped between 2010 and 2016, Romania’s secret service became the major referee in politics by manipulating the evidence used by the anti-corruption agency.

Anti-Corruption Demonstrations

Romania’s public has become increasingly angered and confused by these developments. In 2015, Romania’s government toppled after street protests, only to see the same government reinstated by voters a year later. Unsurprisingly, the rallies resumed the following month, and the news of anti-corruption protests began to grace international headlines as protesters added to their growing list of grievances the constitutional court, some media outlets, and the sitting SDP government.

This summer Romanians took to the streets again. Protesters were mobilized under the banner of “f*ck SDP,” an obscenity campaign which became trendy in the summer of 2018, from provocateurs who put it on their official car tags to Romanian spectators who shouted it at the Montreal tennis court.

The demonstration on August 10 was labeled a “diaspora” rally by international media, but most ministers in the 2016 interim government attended, together with the leaders of the two main opposition parties. The demonstrations took a bad turn, as some hundreds of inflamed protesters fought the military police to enter the government building. The ensuing decision of the military police to evacuate all protesters after 10 pm from the square (tens of thousands, with many children) resulted in hundreds of people inhaling tear gas or being pushed around.

Riot police spray tear gas while scuffling with protesters outside the government headquarters in Bucharest, Romania
The riot police spraying tear gas while scuffling with protesters on August 10. Photo: Daniel Mihailescu, AFP

If all Romanians are on the side of protesters, as international media suggests, why have they endorsed the SDP and its allies with over 60 percent of votes in the last two legislative elections? And why is the SDP still leading strongly in the polls, making early elections useless? If anti-corruption is working, then why has corruption not reduced and we resign ourselves as the Bucharest Law School cancels all written exams because they can no longer control the massive plagiarism? If the civil society has become so strong, then why are rallies featuring political opposition leaders upfront? If protesters are just driven by their love of judicial independence, then why have they come out around the obscenity campaign tagged on SDP and not when DNA’s chief prosecutor was fired?

Romania’s opposition leaders petition Brussels that due to corruption of the government, Romania is unable to handle the E.U. presidency that it is scheduled to chair between January and June 2019, despite the country having the largest growth in Europe. While I have repeatedly written that most Romanian politicians are corrupt, I fail to see why Bulgaria, where no one has been arrested for corruption, seems perfectly capable of handling its current E.U. presidency, while Romania, which extinguished half of its political elite without suitable replacement, would not.

The world is full of political oppositions whistling anti-corruption tunes and governments defending their rents. Corruption and anti-corruption are part of the democratic game, but if progress would be sought by way of reform rather than just prosecution (such as retiring accreditation to corrupt universities), maybe more could be achieved with less cost for democracy itself.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Globe Post.
Share77Tweet
Alina Mungiu-Pippidi

Alina Mungiu-Pippidi

Professor of Democracy Studies at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin and chair of the European Research Centre for Anti-Corruption and State-Building

Related Posts

Peru's President Martin Vizcarra faces impeachment trial.
World

Peru’s Vizcarra Faces Impeachment After Court Bid Fails

by Staff Writer
September 18, 2020
Utah Royals FC stand as teammates kneel for the national anthem before a game
Opinion

The Day That Sports Disappeared

by Stacy Gallin
September 11, 2020
Cosmas Mutethia's wife (R) wears a mask with her husband's name, who was killed by Kenyan police during a night curfew, as she carries an empty coffin during their protest against police brutality in front of the Kenyan Parliament in Nairobi on June 9, 2020.
Opinion

African Regimes Are Using COVID-19 to Stifle the Third Wave of Protests

by Geebio Gargard
September 15, 2020
Armed right-wing protesters at a coronavirus lockdown protest on April 30, 2020 in Lansing, Michigan
Opinion

White Men With Guns in Trump’s America

by Stephen J. Lyons
September 8, 2020
A Belarus opposition supporter with a former white-red-white flag of Belarus punches the air during a demonstration in Minsk on August 16, 2020. Photo: Sergei Gapon/AFP.
World

EU Leaders to Hold Emergency Summit in Support of Belarus People

by Jonah Fox
August 19, 2020
Protests in Belarus
World

Hundreds Detained, Firearms Used in Third Night of Belarus Unrest

by Staff Writer
August 12, 2020
Next Post
a rally for women's rights in Egypt

Egypt's Sunni Authority Says All Sexual Harassment 'Forbidden'

Donald Trump delivering a speech

Trump Says Google is 'Rigged' With Bad News About Him

Recommended

The Onion

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens’

May 25, 2022
police line

Teen Gunman Kills 15 at Texas Elementary School

May 24, 2022
refugees

More Than 100 Million People Forcibly Displaced, UN Says

May 23, 2022
Volkswagen logo

German Farmer Sues Volkswagen Over CO2 Emissions

May 20, 2022
Vladimir Putin

Russia Says Economy Grew 3.5 Percent in First Quarter

May 18, 2022
Mexico missing people

Over 100,000 People Reported Missing in Mexico, Data Reveals

May 17, 2022

Opinion

A Lebanese election official stands at a polling station

New Group Threatens Lebanese Elections… and Potentially Middle East Peace

May 18, 2022
A man holding a gun

Safely Back in USA, Land of Guns and Burgers

May 2, 2022
China Muslim Uyghurs

Unfair Politicization, Corruption, and the Death of Modern Olympism

April 23, 2022
Ukraine war

The Ukrainian Refugee Crisis and the Hierarchies of Western Compassion

April 20, 2022
Chinese leader Xi Jinping

How Wrong ‘How China Can End the War in Ukraine’ Is

April 1, 2022
Ukraine children

The War for Ukraine’s Lives and Minds

March 30, 2022
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post