Useless Congress

The SDP (the Social Democratic Party) Extraordinary Congress is two days away from now. As expected, the newspapers and TV stations are more than preoccupied with this event. Of course, they also have to take into consideration the soap operas directed by Traian Basescu. The SDP Congress should have taken place in April 2007. Why did the members of the party settle for a Congress on the 10th of December, five months before the normal deadline? This is a normal question, because such a reunion involves a huge amount of energy, talent and money: extraordinary county conferences, central suffocating meetings, and the mobilization of the members. I am yet to see an article to give a complete or incomplete answer for this question. The absence of an answer for the question "Why a SDP extraordinary Congress?" isn’t caused by the schizophrenic hostility of the press towards SDP. One cannot find a justification of the extraordinary Congress in the newspapers, because there is no justification. The SDP leaders say the reunion is made in order to have new elections. Was it really necessary? No way. A party decides to organize an extraordinary Congress if:

1) it obtains a disastrous result after the Parliamentary, Presidential, local or Euro-parliamentary elections.

The shacking produced by the result makes the supporters ask for drastic measures and for another leading board able to make them believe in a very short period in the Opposition.

The recent exam justifies the agitation for the leading positions and makes this agitation consistent. They all want to win. The leaders try to convince all the other members that the result was an exception and that the present leading board can still bring success. The adversaries use the result of the elections as a reason for the leading board to resign.

As far as everybody knows, there hasn’t been any poll in Romania during the past two years.

In these circumstances, the Extraordinary SDP Congress is useless.

2) The party is facing a major internal crisis, caused by a certain group of members contesting the political strategy of the current leading board.

There are signs of dissension in SDP, but they cannot be considered a severe internal crisis. The contradictory statements, the public fights are a consequence of the strategy applied by the leading board elected in April 2005.

Scared by the possibility of a leading board formed by Ion Iliescu and Adrian Nastase, as it was during the Opposition years, the local and central barons went for an easy-to-manipulate president. Something similar to the barons in France or England who, in order to be able to rule their feuds, were using a shrimps or pansies as a King.

The country only had a theoretical King. Actually, the kingdom was made of feuds. The absence of a strong leader able to take quick and firm decisions regarding certain national issues made it possible for SDP to have no actual leader. Now, we have as many SDPs as there are local and central political barons. A SDP of Ion Iliescu, of Ioan Rus, of Marian Oprisan, of Vasile Dancu and even a SDP of Marian Vanghelie. None of the ones leading the infinite power centers in SDP were able to build a wing around a central idea regarding the party’s political strategy. This is why the extraordinary Congress cannot clarify anything. There is only one plausible explanation for the organization of this event. An explanation that appears from time to time in the speeches of Mircea Geoana: the necessity of a confirmation for the current leading board. If we were to believe the SDP leader, the next day after the Congress, SDP will start a tremendous assault against the current Power in order to destroy it. Questions: Why didn’t SDP do this until now? The National Anti-corruption Directorate? Does the Political Police of Traian Basescu dissolve after the Congress?!