The Demise Of The National Liberal Party

The latest political gesture of the National Liberal Party, or PNL, leader and also PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu makes one think the demise of his party is near.

Tariceanu’s and the PNL’s moves remind those of the Christian Democrat Party before the latter’s demise.

Tariceanu last week said Romania will pull out of Iraq, without any prior consultation with Romania’s partners in the international coalition or with the PNL partners in the country’s ruling coalition.

With using the issue of Romania’s withdrawal from Iraq as a political tool against President Traian Basescu, Tariceanu revealed an unexpected, dangerous and perverse quality: that of "anything goes," if it is to score points in his domestic battle with the president.

A very legitimate issue, which already had the support of all parliamentary parties except the Democrat Party, or PD, formerly led by Basescu, should have been discussed inside the ruling coalition and the solution to withdraw which it would have been arrived at was nothing Basescu could have opposed then.

As it is, the feud which opposes the PD and the PNL took on now a new dimension, dragging the national security issue into the fight.

Though national security is of utmost importance, and should transcend party lines, the two supposedly ruling coalition allies use it liberally as a bargaining chip.

There is no consultation and consensus on the matter.

And there is an ugly side of Tariceanu’s that emerges for all to see.

Not that Basescu’s character is a thing of beauty, but at least, in his case, expectations were not high.

Tariceanu showed his ugly face when he put the name of the army on the line and deliberately used it to score against Basescu.

I, somehow, naively thought that the top Romanian liberals were primarily fair business people, civil, and abiding by the principles of democracy and dialogue.

The go-it-alone decision regarding the Iraq pull-out shows the dangerous character of the current PNL leadership.

If that would have concerned a domestic political issue, would have still been palatable, as we got used to the taste of such politics.

But not when taking the political style outside Romania’s borders.

Translated by Anca Paduraru