First Dracula than EU, but <http://politicom.moldova.org/stiri/eng/22651/> corruption lives on in Romania By Kathrin Lauer, dpa
Bucharest (dpa) - The father of all vampires, Dracula, slithered out of Bram Stoker's pen into the pitch-black night of the Carpathian mountains in 1897. Stoker was inspired by the historic, sinister 15th century Transylvanian ruler, Count Vlad Tepes, who was particularly fond of stakes when dealing with the corrupt and the criminal. Dispensing justice, the legends go, he ordered between 40,000 and 100,000 people killed, few of them quickly. On January 1, Romania joins the European Union, but remains plagued by corruption, so much so that you will still hear an occasional under-the-breath invocation of the name of Tepes, a name which means the impaler, even 530 years after his death. So it is not a huge surprise that politicians with an air of authority rank highly in Romania. President Traian Basescu is the most popular with 61-per-cent support, ahead of the ultra-nationalist leader Corneliu Vadim Tudor at 13 per cent and the immensely rich Gheorghe Becali, owner of the Romanian flagship football team Steaua Bucharest, at 10 per cent. Head of state since 2004, Basescu was a maritime captain trusted by Nikolae Ceausescu's hardline communist regime, which fell in 1989, incidentally triggering the demise of the Iron Curtain. Nowadays, Basescu is a pro-American, right-wing liberal, engineering a fusion of parties which grant him control over the entire anti-communist segment of the political spectrum. He has profiled himself as a critic of liberal Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu, whom he in his perpetual verbal attacks tends to describe as a weakling. Tudor, leader of the Romania Mare (Greater Romania) party propagates a nationalist-communist-fascist doctrine with which Ceausescu terrorized his people over decades. The up-and-coming politician, sport manager Becali, likes to describe himself as the "avenger of the disinherited," but does not limit himself to expending words: he also gives away a lot of money. He tends to swoop into a village in a helicopter, pass wads of bills around to the people, give some more to the local church before disappearing into the sky. Becali plans to run for the European Parliament with his New Generation Party (PNG). The vast majority of Romanians expect a better life from EU membership. Increasing wealth and well-being has eluded them throughout the 16 years of the still unfinished transition. The largest fear is that a flood of foreign trade items could drown the local industry. At least 2 million Romanians live and work abroad, most in Spain and Italy, and most illegally. Some analysts say that the "guest workers" could boost Romania's transformation, not because they bring money home, but because they bring Western habits. People like these could also chip away at the Romanian character: all temperament on one side, but fatalistic and authority-accepting on the other - in line with the preaching of the national Orthodox Christian Church, the religion of 87 per cent of the population. With Romania, the EU will be expanded by a very colourful country, with Western European traits among the 1.5 million ethnic Hungarians in the north-west, a lively Balkan character in the south around Bucharest and a laid-back Bohemian one in the Slavic north-east. It remains to be seen how much of the variety will remain after the modern-day Dracula has his way, reforming until everybody in the country is lined up politely and neatly. C 2006 DPA ---------------------------- Vali "Noble blood is an accident of fortune; noble actions are the chief mark of greatness." (Carlo Goldoni) "When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." (Jimi Hendrix)
