Campania anticorupţie a degenerat într-o cruciadă iliberală, iar apetitul nesatisfăcut al publicului pentru dreptate pune în discuţie viitorul democraţiei, se arată într-un editorial intitulat  :

             "Mania anticorupţie a României",

sub semnătura lui Patrick Basham, publicat miercuri de The New York Times.

     "În noiembrie 2014, Klaus Iohannis, liderul Partidului Naţional Liberal, a fost ales preşedinte, cu o platformă electorală populistă pentru combaterea corupţiei, succedându-i lui Traian Băsescu, care susţinuse în ultima perioadă o campanie anticorupţie ce părea relativ lipsită de agresivitate. Pentru domnul Băsescu, acesta era un instrument politic util pentru atacarea adversarilor, dar şi pentru atenuarea criticilor americane şi europene privind guvernarea României. Însă manevra lui a fost tardivă", explică, în editorialul din The New York Times, Patrick Basham, directorul Institutului pentru Democraţie, cu sedii la Washington şi Londra.

     "Prin victoria lui Iohannis, eforturile anticorupţie au devenit exagerate. În contextul în care puterea executivă este deţinută de premier, Victor Ponta, liderul Partidului Social-Democrat, Preşedinţia poate fi o poziţie puternică pentru expunerea unor opinii influente. Dat fiind că au fost privaţi de dreptate zeci de ani, mai întâi de către dictatori, apoi de către democraţi ineficienţi, românii susţin cu entuziasm cauza anticorupţie. După ce acţiunile judiciare lansate în timpul preşedintelui Băsescu au generat în peste 1.000 de condamnări de politicieni şi oameni de afaceri în 2014, campania anticorupţie s-a dovedit a fi o temă politică esenţială. Însă acum domneşte populismul crud. Posturile de televiziune relatează fără oprire despre orice delict. În condiţiile în care instanţele au rate de condamnare de peste 90 la sută, zeci de politicieni din principalele partide politice au căzut în dizgraţie", continuă editorialul, notând că s-a ajuns ca România să nu mai aibă locuri în închisori.

"De fapt, corupţia este endemică în viaţa de zi cu zi din România, iar situaţia politică reflectă realitatea socială. Se presupune că toţi cei din politică şi din mediile de afaceri au activităţi ilegale. (...) Ascensiunea statului de tip procuratură îi ameninţă chiar şi pe cei din sistem", adaugă editorialistul, menţionând anchetarea Alinei Bica, fosta şefă a DIICOT, pusă de premierul Victor Ponta să conducă investigaţiile guvernamentale împotriva crimei organizate şi care a participat la elaborarea Codului Penal din România.

"Este o practică obişnuită ca suspecţii să fie supuşi presiunilor pentru a dezvălui numele unor complici în schimbul unor pedepse mai uşoare. De asemenea, este o rutină ca rude ale suspecţilor să fie arestate pentru a ca procurorii să aibă instrumente suplimentare de presiune. (...) În pofida dezminţirilor oficiale, toată lumea ştie că instanţele nu sunt atât de independente din punct de vedere politic cum ar trebui", explică editorialistul The New York Times.

"Înainte de a fi ales în 2012, domnul Ponta caracteriza Direcţia Naţională Anticorupţie drept o versiune modernă a temutei poliţii secrete a dictatorului Nicolae Ceauşescu. Dar, pe măsură ce opinia publică a devenit favorabilă DNA, premierul şi-a schimbat opinia. Un politician pro-piaţă, domnul Ponta acţionează acum ca principal suporter al campaniei anticorupţie - considerând că este un instrument la îndemână pentru vizarea adversarilor săi din presă, în principal a proprietarilor publicaţiilor critice. Imediat după ce domnul Ponta a avut un conflict cu Adrian Sârbu, proprietarul Mediafax Group, care editează principalul ziar de business din România, domnul Sârbu a fost arestat preventiv sub acuzaţiile de evaziune fiscală, spălare de bani şi delapidare. Sârbu neagă acuzaţiile", subliniază Patrick Basham în The New York Times, precizând că şi "inculparea lui Dan Adamescu, proprietarul ziarului independent România Liberă, este preocupantă".

"Aparentele motivaţii politice din spatele cazurilor Sârbu şi Adamescu demonstrează modul în care un efort de a diminua raportul dintre bani şi politică a degenerat în amplificarea reglărilor disputelor personale şi în exagerarea atribuţiilor justiţiei", explică editorialistul NYT.

"Un alt efect neintenţionat al campaniei anticorupţie este că alimentează sentimentele antiamericane. Dat fiind că Departamentul de Stat a exprimat temeri că o Românie coruptă se poate transforma în viitoarea Ucraină, cu o furie populară îndreptată împotriva oligarhiei corupte care ar conduce la proteste violente, unii români consideră acum numeroasele condamnări pronunţate rapid drept o tentativă neinspirată de impresionare a Statelor Unite", argumentează Basham.

"Ca arbitri ai guvernărilor echilibrate, nici Statele Unite, nici Uniunea Europeană nu ar trebui să păstreze tăcerea în privinţa abuzului de puterea procurorilor făcut de Guvernul României. În mod cert, o Românie mai puţin coruptă ar fi un membru mai bun al Uniunii Europene şi un aliat NATO mai solid, dar ar fi o eroare să se accepte ca unitate de măsurare a succesului o justiţie pur şi simplu cantitativă, mai degrabă decât calitativă. Campania anticorupţie din România a ajuns rapid la metastază, transformându-se într-o cruciadă iliberală. Apetitul nesatisfăcut al publicului pentru dreptate nu face decât să amplifice riscurile asupra viiitorului democratic al ţării. Statele Unite şi guvernele europene ar trebui să îi felicite pe români pentru nou-descoperita determinare de eradicare a corupţiei, dar acum încurajează o schimbare în abordarea Guvernului", insistă editorialistul The New York Times.

"Dezvoltarea democratică a României s-ar realiza mai bine printr-un proces public de recunoaştere, documentare şi iertare a erorilor din trecut", consideră Patrick Basham, recomandând "un proces complet" - "transparent, nepărtinitor şi bazat pe judecăţi corecte" - care să recompenseze cu amnistii dezvăluirile ilegalităţilor.

Patrick Basham este directorul Democracy Institute, o organizaţie de cercetare în domeniul politicilor publice cu sedii la Washingon şi Londra fondată în 2006. Basham este şi colaborator al Institutului Cato şi director fondator al Centrului pentru Afaceri Sociale de la Institutul Fraser din Canada. El a mai publicat editorialele controversate referitoare la situaţia politică şi economică din România în ziare importante, cum ar fi Pravda şi Hufftington Post. El a fost şi acuzat că ar fi făcut lobby prin editorialele şi rapoartele sale pentru industriile tutunului, alimentară şi a jocurilor de noroc. În ceea ce priveşte România, Patrick Basham a scris editoriale în care a făcut referiri pozitive la adresa premierului Victor Ponta, precum şi despre situaţia juridică a lui Dan Adamescu, dar şi un material în favoarea investiţiei de la Roşia Montană înaintea deciziei Parlamentului privind proiectul minier.

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   "This article is written in response to Teodor Stan's article, On the Verge of Democratic Consolidation: The Romanian Presidential Elections, posted on the Carnegie Council website, November 7, 2014.

One school of thought suggests an optimist is someone who simply has not heard the news yet. By that definition, Teodor Stan is an optimist about Romania.

During the recent presidential election campaign, he candidly and comprehensively recounted the respective highs and lows of Romania's democratic transition. (See On the Verge of Democratic Consolidation: The Romanian Presidential Elections) He also assessed the leading candidates for the nation's highest office, concluding that, "[I]rrespective of the final electoral tally, the country will continue to consolidate state institutions with EU and U.S. support. Indeed, it offers a remarkably resilient alternative liberal model for the Wider Black Sea region." Unfortunately, his forecasts about Romanian democracy already have been overwhelmed by events in Bucharest and elsewhere.

Stan's informative retrospective displays the impartiality and candor absent from so many contemporary accounts of democratization throughout Central and Eastern Europe. But, in striking contrast, his prospective analysis appears filtered through rose-tinted glasses.

Most notably, and most troublingly, he portrays today's Romania as a stable democracy with an independent judiciary. Stan writes that, "No matter which of the two [Prime Minister Victor Ponta and President Klaus Johannis] accede to the presidency, the country will remain stable and . . . it is unlikely to reverse commendable progress in the institutional consolidation of its independent justice system." In this manner, he views the present—and especially the future—Romanian glass as decidedly half-full: "Romania will remain a stable European democracy with a representative multiparty political system if either Ponta or Johannis become president."

A more accurate assessment would acknowledge an increasingly fragile democratic glass that is decidedly half-empty. On the ground in Romania, the opposite of Stan's forecast is happening. Democratic institutions are under threat and the forces of democracy are in retreat.

Democratic slippage is occurring at an accelerated rate for a variety of external and internal reasons; some are economic, others are political. One underappreciated catalyst is the increasingly symbiotic relationship between Romanian and Western political elites.

The Romanian political class is fully aware of the country's importance to Western security. Although a member of NATO since 2004, Romania is being encouraged by both domestic and foreign actors to move closer to Russia for political, economic, and strategic support. If Romania, geostrategically positioned on the Black Sea, heads down this path, it will have serious implications for American and EU foreign policymakers.

The strategic value of the Black Sea region is derived from its geographical, political and economic position. The region constitutes the southeastern frontier of NATO and the EU, and is the juncture at which Europe, Russia, Asia, and the Middle East meet. In geopolitical terms, the region is a zone of instability with direct repercussions for European security, yet is also a zone of opportunity for developing as a partner within the Euro-Atlantic community via NATO and the EU.

The region however, is at the crux of two spheres of influence, that is, those of the West and Russia. Russian perceptions of zero-sum diplomacy and balances-of-power constitute a major obstacle to cooperation. It is in this context that the Black Sea region is vital to the security of the Euro-Atlantic community as it can constitute, if necessary, a bulwark against a resurgent Russia. The region's also vital for projecting power into the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Middle East to contain threats and challenges to security before they can mature as a direct threat to Euro-Atlantic security.

The Black Sea region's importance is further enhanced due to its position as a critical economic hub, in particular with regard to energy and transportation. It is therefore in Europe and America's interest to help Romania—a strategically important democracy—to achieve the sustainable political health and economic prosperity it seeks and to preserve a vital relationship.

The current set of Western leaders concluded that the security of any former Soviet bloc country is threatened by a corrupt political system, with Ukraine serving as the most recent and obvious illustration of the apparent validity of this geopolitical model. Therefore, the West today asserts that the ability of any formerly communist nation in Eastern Europe to literally and figuratively defend itself strongly correlates with the absence of political corruption.

Cognizant of this calculus, Romanian politicians have adopted a two-pronged tactical approach. First, to satisfy the pressure from Western leaders, they claim to engage in the ‘rooting out' of corruption. In practice, this simply, but tellingly, entails the removal of their respective political opponents, both inside and outside of their own partisan organizations. Such a superficial display of anti-corruption endeavor nonetheless impresses, even satisfies, naïve Western onlookers.

For this reason, the second tactical maneuver is to leverage and exploit their secure position with Western leaders. They do this by acting in an illiberal manner vis-à-vis domestic democratic institutions, procedures, and critics. This is accomplished in the knowledge, or at least under the working assumption, that no one in the West will seek to shine a light among the shadows or in the darker corners of Romanian politics.

One area of public life where the absence of corruption is essential to democratic governance is the rule of law. In this vein, Stan lauds the Romanian political class's cross-partisan, prospective commitment to an independent judiciary. However, respective incidents of politically-influenced ‘justice' and prosecution strongly suggest that it will require a sea-change in outlook for Romanian leaders to inoculate the country's courts and policing from the virus of political intervention.

The current case of the persecuted publisher, Dan Adamescu, is a most tangible demonstration that the current political leadership's commitment to the rule of law and an independent judiciary is illusory. In a new policy paper, The State of Democracy After 25 Years: Lessons from Central and Eastern Europe, the Henry Jackson Society's Ola Cichowlas and Andrew Foxall review the prosecution of Adamescu and find that:

Dan Adamescu, the owner of the critical and independent newspaper Romania Libera, is under house arrest, on what appear to be politically motivated corruption charges. Maintaining that Adamescu supports Basescu (the outgoing president and Ponta's chief political opponent), Ponta allegedly fabricated a corruption scandal in which he accused Adamescu of embezzling money, in order to finance Basescu's campaign, from Astra Asigurari, Romania's largest insurance company that Adamescu owns. Although all of these allegations turned out to be false, Ponta used them as a justification to expropriate Adamescu and place Astra Asigurari under direct government control.

The strength of democratic institutions and the political culture underpinning them reflect, in part, the manner in which practitioners of politics approach the challenges and withstand the pressures that are inherent in a competitive, pluralistic, and participatory environment. Do they learn from their mistakes, tolerate dissent, and welcome constructive criticism? Or, do they blame others for their failures, crackdown upon critics, and seek to stifle alternate viewpoints?

Along these lines, Stan's essay predicted that a more ideologically centrist, less partisan, and more Western-oriented Social Democratic Party (PSD) would emerge if Prime Minister Victor Ponta suffered a defeat in the presidential election's November 16 run-off: "Presuming Ponta's weakness inside the PSD should he lose, the party might shift back to the center, making it a potential stability factor." In fact, argued Stan: "There is an interesting, distinct possibility that PSD as a party would revert to a more moderate centrist leadership and become a coalition builder with or without Ponta's election as president. Many high-ranking PSD party members have worked hard over the last few decades to obtain Western recognition and integrate the country in trans-Atlantic security structures."

Clearly, most Western observers would welcome such a transition for Ponta's PSD; however, the most recent evidence indicates such a future for the PSD is far closer to a mirage than a probability.

For example, once Ponta's defeat at the hands of Klaus Johannis was confirmed, the prime minister's inner circle commenced a predictable round of assigning blame to enemies, real and imagined. Most disturbingly, Ponta's longstanding deputy, Liviu Dragnea, the PSD's deeply influential secretary general, blamed the prime minister's defeat on American influence.

A number of senior PSD members responded to Ponta's defeat with their own critique of the prime minister's campaign, leadership, and governing style. For example, Dan Sova said immediately after the presidential election that Ponta and Dragnea must take a step back following their campaign failure. Echoing both the tone and nature of deposed dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's style of party management, Ponta responded by removing his internal critics. Hence, Sova, for instance, was expelled from the party.

All of which tangibly illustrates that Romania's larger problem is a deeply entrenched attitude, one consolidated and heightened during a half-century of communist rule. It is the appeal of, and public responsiveness to, the traditional strong-man figure. Ponta is the contemporary embodiment of this preeminent characteristic of Romanian political culture. His evolution from a pro-Western, pro-market, self-styled Blairite social democrat to an apparently enthusiastic wielder of undemocratic instruments is as striking as it is regrettable.

Of course, Ponta is not the first despoiler of his nation's democratic promise. Rather, he is but the latest example of this Romanian tradition. The irony is that Romanians continue to accept those in power acquiring more and more power for themselves and their allies for the self-defeating reason that they expect it to happen. Hence, there is no public surprise, let alone any shock value, each and every time it happens.

While it is depressing to observe Romanian democracy under such downward pressure, the country retains the inherent potential to arrest her slide, reverse direction, and regain the momentum that earlier encouraged her Western neighbors and allies to welcome the country into both NATO and the European Union.

The necessary first-step in righting the ship of state is a thorough cleansing of the country's democratic stable. Only Romanians, themselves, can perform this laborious and at times unpleasant task. The outstanding question is whether the Romanian people choose to pick up the requisite political shovels and hoses while the option is still available to them?  "

**  

Patrick Basham

http://www.democracyinstitute.org/

Patrick Basham directs the Democracy Institute, a politically independent Washington- and London-based think tank.

He is also a senior fellow with the Center for Representative Government of the Cato Institute. He authored the reports, "Home, sweet home? Balkan migration, the EU & liberal solutions," and "Balkan tiger and Balkan backwater? Today's threat to Romania's economic future." Basham has served as an independent election observer in Africa and Asia.

Resources

• Romania: On the Edge of a Democratic Cliff?

**  http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/articles_papers_reports/02351

** sursa  :- MEDIAFAX