The Premises That Influenced the 2012 General Elections in Romania
2013; Babeș-Bolyai University; Volume: 6; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2559-1983
Autores Tópico(s)Hungarian Social, Economic and Educational Studies
ResumoAbstract:Through this paper, I want to emphasize the most important premises that, from my point of view, contributed to the voting result in the general elections of December 2012 in Romania. I have also analysed several aspects referring to the winning parties, that have become part of the Social Liberal Union, as well as aspects related to the defeated party in these elections, which, in my opinion, was the Democratic Liberal Party. Furthermore, I want to mention the fact that the premises presented in this article are not the only ones that have contributed to the electoral results of December 2012, but I consider that these are the most important.Keywords: political parties, electoral results, general elections, local elections, alliance, crisis, demonstrations, strategy, entities.IntroductionThe December 2012 general elections were important for both the USL1 (Social Liberal Union) and the PDL2 (Democratic Liberal Party), respectively ARD (Right Romania Alliance), as it represented a turning point in the Romanian politics. For a better understanding of the general elections, we will describe in this article the economic, social, political and electoral situation at the moment of the elections, as well as the evolution of the political parties during 2012. According to CSOP and IMAS surveys, looked set to win between 48 and 57% of the vote. The proBasescu ARD was expected to garner 16 to 24% and Dan Diaconescu's PP-DD was polling at about 14% [BBC, 2012]. Based on all opinion polls, we considered that one of the certainties of this campaign would be represented by the fact that the USL was going to win the elections with a very good percentage.Romania's economic situationThe political situation created in 2012 was, in its turn, based on certain actions undertaken by the Emil Boc Government in the previous years. In fact, the problem started in 2009 when President Traian Basescu, obviously wanting to win a second term at Cotroceni, announced through the Romanian TV shows that the crisis did not exist, although the entire world was affected by it. Most of the opinions expressed by the Government's representatives and by the Prime Minister at that time were positive when referring to the Romanian economy, encouraging the population to trust the realities they presented. From my point of view, the above-mentioned messages had only a propagandists character, as the PDL was supposed to support Traian Basescu in his presidential campaign.In fact, Romania's economic situation was completely different, the crisis being omnipresent in our country as well. Many were those who believed in the messages delivered by the President Traian Basescu and voted accordingly so that President Basescu would win the elections again. A basic rule in PR and in the creation of image through different messages states that, in order to persist, any form has to be at least 80% filled with content, otherwise, in time, the image becomes eroded due to the lack of content. In other words, a reality can be embellished by a better form of presentation, but based on a truth of the respective reality. This is where the PDL made a mistake in the long-term strategy, because they embellished a reality that was completely different from the real one. That was the main reason that made the PDL lose the trust of their electorate. Mr. Traian Basescu's purpose was attained, i.e. a second term at Cotroceni, but, on the long term, the economic policies adopted by the PDL were not able to face the realities of the crisis, an aspect which forced them to adopt extremely unpopular measures for economic recovery.During the years following the 2009 presidential elections, the propaganda was no longer able to face the tough economic realities the population was dealing with. Consequently, the Romanian state had to borrow more and more money, but, along with the loans, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) also imposed certain conditions that Romania had to obey. …
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