November 22nd 2004
A campaign with few ideas, with mediocre strategies, with things the Constitution doesnât cover, but with very high electoral promises. Nothing new! You could say this for sure when reading todayâs collection issue, "Elections in the 20th Century".
by MARIUS TUCA
"The campaign regarding nowadaysâ elections apparently didnât show anything more than the campaigns in the past. The same stodgy literature in the political press, the same seductive promises - that will never happen". This is a fragment from the "Universul" newspaper from the 25th of May 1926. Today, they are as true and present. The electoral campaign gathered all the Santas, Santa Claus, Santa Nicolae, Santa Andrei etc. It filled their bags with promises and overturned them on peopleâs heads. "Here, take, seem to say the Romanian politicians, take âcause we have >, for the unemployed, for peasants, for businessmen, for the bright, for the young, for pensioners, for women, for strawberry collectors, for childrenâ¦" I donât remember an electoral campaign after 1989 as rich in promises as this one. The politicians, the political parties adopted the "all or nothing" method. And they promised everything! A campaign with few ideas, with mediocre strategies, with things the Constitution doesnât cover, but with electoral promises greater than Santaâs presents. If the parties fulfil their promises then, after the elections, will bathe in milk in honey, and the people wonât have anything else to do but stay in their houses and get ready to eat from the politiciansâ own hands. Carsâ wheels will be made out of free-soy salami, and the coins, for a better circulation in the European Union and in nature, will be made out of pressed cheese.