The Social Democrats Visit The Flush Floods Hit Areas

The flush floods hit five days ago the village of Arbore, in Suceava County, north-eastern Romania; ten people died and one is still missing; scores of homes collapsed to the ground or where simply washed away.

But those floods of water prompted a new flood ready to engulf Arbore village once again: this time politicians kept pouring in. Two mini-vans filled with men and women whose faces were like copy-pasted from those one sees only on television screens stopped at the bridge in Arbore: they were top officials with the Social Democrat Party, in opposition, led by their president, Mircea Geoana.

The villagers are nowhere to be seen yet, so Geoana attempts to get to one of the half-collapsed houses. He changes his mind when comparing his shiny shoes against the deep mud in front of him. The villagers welcome him. One woman tells him: "Listen to me, sir! I worked for 30 years in the fields and I am left with nothing now." Geoana kisses her on the cheek, and gives her a hug and an envelope with money.

"We should pass a special law to help these people," said Geoana looking around at his entourage.

An elderly man asks for a bag of cement.

The social-democrats start moving along in the surreal landscape, with houses blown away by the passing floods less then a week ago. "Mr. Tariceanu!" shouts one villager to call Geoana. The latter pretends he did not hear the call of the woman who mistook him for PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu.

"Not very nice of you!" shouts the woman seeing Geoana did not want to stop to listen to her plight. But that’s all she does, turning her back and walking in the opposite direction as the social-democrat crowd. Before the social-democrats’ arrival the same woman commented that the response of the authorities was so weak "as if we were in Congo," said she.

"Mr. Geoana, my pension is less than two eurocents per month," said another man. "No, this cannot be," says Geoana.

"Go away, all of you, just go away and leave us alone," answers back the man.

The sun shines strongly and the social democrats get back into their mini-vans.

"How was the visit of Becali, who witnessed it?" asks Geoana of the visit a day before, of Gigi Becali, president of the populist New Generation Party, not represented in Parliament.

The minivans stop at the place where the home of three people dead and one missing two-year old once stood. The young man who lost his wife, son and mother gets a promise from Geoana that he will have his home redone and receive animals.

With three pats over the man’s but, Geoana presents a flower reef, lights a candle and takes a deep sigh: "Life is not fair, life is not fair…"

Up in the minivan, and again on the road. The next stop is at another family’s destroyed house. The woman there does not seem to know which president is visiting her; she gets three million lei sroughly 100 dollarst from the man’s own wallet.

As he leaves, a lesser social democrat in the party’s ranking makes sure the woman gets the information she lacked: "This is Geoana. Geoa-na, spells he. PSD, spells he the party name. You did not vote for him, but for Tariceanu, and now, look what happened!"

Translated by Anca Paduraru