A victory for street demonstrators? I mean, PM Emil Boc’s resignation as of Monday, is it a victory for them ?

Partially, yes. The daily protests against the government, against the president and against the current political power have had their influence in the result. But I believe it was not a direct influence. I remember that the (already) former PM was very little impressed by the street protests. He played his part by saying he understood people’s discontent and hardship, but he was not at all ready to give up. Something else must have triggered the decision to resign.

Was it the pressure coming from president Traian Basescu? Basescu is a hard player and he is following his political feelings with great determination. Last week he vowed to go along with Emil Boc. Did he change his mind? Probably, possibly. The Boc government has become a huge rock tied on the democrat-liberals’ necks. More and more unpopular, the Boc cabinet has become synonym with failure – from the citizen’s point of view. Although Boc took pride of salvaging the country from financial collapse, the street view says something different. And the president was aware of this.

What’s for sure is that the democrat-liberals themselves pushed Boc towards resignation. PDL is free-falling in opinion polls and a change was necessary. Boc had never been popular, but recently his popularity plunged deeper and deeper. His democrat-liberal colleagues have become more irritated with the perspective of going into opposition after the coming elections. Something needed to be done. A scapegoat was needed and that one was no other than Boc.

While I was listening to his colleague ministers’ statements after the resignation, I though I was witnessing a funeral. Great words, positive messages of praise and admiration for Boc. I began wondering why he is leaving. Tears came to my eyes. What a great man we are losing!

The most deceiving message was the one coming from Minister Elena Udrea, one of Traian Basescu’s closest allies. Udrea told the reporters Boc is to be seen by history as the man who managed to save Romania while governing in the toughest period of time Romania witnessed during the latest 80 years and he did what was necessary for our country.

Yes, I wonder what the history books will write about Emil Boc. Will they mention his lack of courage in adopting stimulating economic measures during the crisis? Will they mention the hiking of VAT from 19 to 24 per cent? Will they record Boc’s populism during the electoral campaign for general elections in 2008? Will they mention he promised a 50 per cent rise of salaries for teachers? Or the fact that instead of hiking the salaries he decided to cut them by 25 per cent two years later?

And yet I wonder… Will the history books mention Emil Boc at all?

Maxy