I Won the 2004 Elections…Again!

A lot of you might say these are angry words that one keeps for himself for a long period of time. I think this is something more interesting than that. There are people for whom certain truths are useless and even dangerous for long periods of time. But, if times change, if the friendships and alliances start transforming, these truths easily become useful and can be mentioned in public. Long story short, the news of the day: last week, Traian Basescu said something that was actually true! Something hidden for a long period of time in official numbers that are taken into consideration only when it is really necessary.

The President officially admitted that the J. T. (Justice and Truth) Alliance lost the elections in 2004! "So what?", you might say, if you remember the results of that poll. Well, this is historical. I shall tell you two reasons for that.

First of all, this is a statement that annuls Traian Basescu’s cry for help from the entire world because "the robbery of century" had taken place during the first round of elections. Of course, afterwards, "the entire world" saw the real facts since the investigation infirmed the computer fraud, and the international experts brought by Prodemocratia announced the computer software had been ok. But now it’s official: Mr. Basescu figured it out himself. In the past two years, I found that very often the President doesn’t know what he does or say and he publicly admits it, by bursting into tears from time to time. The thing with the stolen elections was such a moment as well.

Second of all, I, for one, hope to get rid of a certain type of TV show in which certain analysts "explain" the reasons for which the J. T. Alliance "had won" the elections, the reasons for which SDP "lost" the elections and the historical consequences that harmoniously come with all of this. I hope I never get to hear again about the people that had got rid of the "caddish system" and had wanted to take SDP out of history, geography and gastronomy. I hope I will never have to hear again speeches about the Great Revolution in 2004.

The truth said by Traian Basescu is useful not only for the wide audience, not only for the present members of the Government, not only for the analysts I was talking about, but also for many of my colleagues that had drawn (too) quickly the conclusion that we "had lost" the elections in 2004. Therefore, they had started looking for the causes of a defeat that never took place.

So what? You might say. One cannot turn back time. It is true, but we can understand the times we live in. The same Traian Basescu said he had brought the Alliance into the Government because SDP had to become the Opposition due to historical reasons. Since no presidential commission to study the situation was formed, we conclude that this historical need was actually one belonging to the President. This brought the country in at least two years of chaos.

By acting against the will of the electorate, the President generated a chaotic, hybrid and instable governmental team that brought the failure we have been facing for the past two years. Starting from the premises that "anything is better than SDP", we got nothing. All these, in a historical moment when we would have needed a lot less. We needed competition, attention, responsibility. Probably, not too far in the future, the President will admit these consequences while bursting into tears.

P.S. The Basescu axiom: the people wanted to send SDP into the Opposition, even though the same people voted for it during the parliamentary elections in 2004.