By Isabelle Wesselingh — As Romania’s government stares down calls to quit over its bid to weaken anti-corruption laws, residents of one small village, like many Romanians, have lost faith in the party in power. Singureni, a village of 3,100 people about 30 km south of Bucharest, is a stronghold of the left-leaning Social Democratic Party (PSD). Like the majority of residents there, Ionut and his wife, voted to put the Social Democrats back in power.
Now after barely two months, what had promised to be a dawn of economic opportunities and a responsive government has soured to a twilight of disappointment, even despair. “Here, if we steal a chicken — I give you this as an example, I don’t steal them — we are convicted and sent to prison,” Ionut said. “But they could steal 200,000 lei (44,000 euros, $47,500) without being sent to jail.” On January 31, less than a month after its election, the PSD adopted an emergency decree which critics say would have protected corrupt politicians from prosecution. The proposed changes would have made abuse of power a crime punishable by jail only if the amount of money concerned exceeded 200,000 lei.
Separately the government wants to release some 2,500 people serving prison sentences for non-violent crimes of less than five years.
The offending decree was scrapped last Sunday in the face of the country’s biggest protests since the end of communism in 1989.
On Thursday, Florin Iordache became Romania’s first major political casualty, resigning as justice minister. The day before, Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu had survived a no-confidence vote in parliament.
Singureni seems a world away from Bucharest. Residents live simply, doing odd jobs in shops or farms, eking out a living on government assistance and raising chickens and pigs to make ends meet. The Social Democrats garnered 88 per cent of the vote here on December 11. One of the PSD’s first measures was to raise the minimum wage of 1,250 lei (277 euros, $295) to 322 euros ($343) and pensions. Now all of those efforts have been undone by rising anger over the decree and efforts to ease up on punishing graft. “They hurried to adopt the decree,” Ionut said. “They wanted to serve and protect themselves” from justice.— AFP
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