No matter if Coalition leaders admit it or not, this is the death of their Protocol, the only document that keeps them together as far as objectives are concerned. The Protocol is no longer worth a penny ever since Monday evening. It is now a piece of paper to reach history's recycle bin. And mind you, this is the second Protocol that cannot be obeyed. Coalition leaders tried hard to set some short-term objectives in both documents. The most ambitious objectives were after the consolidation of their power in the Parliament and in the territory. This is why they were after replacing Parliament presidents Vacaroiu and Nastase, both of them PSD (the Social-Democrat Party) leaders, with members of PNL (the National Liberal Party) and PD (the Democrat Party). They also wanted to bring a new legislative frame that would allow for some PSD presidents of district councils to be sacked and their positions to be assumed by Coalition representatives. Both projects failed for different reasons. The consequence of it is that the present Coalition is now at bay and might never find the way out. They might fail to find this way very soon, given pressure from both unions and presidency. Just like many other objectives set by the four parties now at rule, the idea to replace district council presidents lacked both realism and pragmatism. Legislative modification of the mechanism due to which district council presidents were elected could only work in the following electoral cycle, of course. But by this time the new game rules might get to favor present opposition parties. In other words, the effect can turn into the opposite of the objective pursued. This was wonderful failure! Moreover, suppose the rulers had been determined to defy all logic and apply the new regulation now, but not after future elections, the change would have affected every local institution, every council and councilor, because of the Brownian move they could have started. It would have led to true chaos. After they failed it, there followed the Constitutional Court's famous decision against the revocation of both Parliament Chambers' presidents during the present electoral cycle only on grounds of the majority modification. Therefore Nastase and Vacaroiu will continue to be Parliament presidents, whereas Coalition leaders suffered defeat. There are few people who have noticed and there are even fewer people who have mentioned two interesting details: that both ideas meant to consolidate the power at rule, the latter anyway patched with an "immoral solution" right after elections by Traian Basescu, belong to the latter official. He is the one who came up with the idea to get district council presidents and Parliament presidents replaced and who urged that the idea should be included in both Coalition Protocols. Later on it was Basescu also who gave it up, simply leaving parties without support and saying the replacing of district councils was no priority. As for the two Chambers' presidents, Traian Basescu changed his mind right after the Liberals had refused to name Mona Musca Deputy Chamber president to replace Adrian Nastase and preferred Bogdan Olteanu instead of Mona Musca, as Olteanu was a public personality at greater distance from Cotroceni. And the Romanian president avoided the offside again and found the right time to openly express his idea that this change was no priority. It is to be briefly mentioned that the mechanism worked in the same way and it was successful for Cotroceni as far as early elections were concerned: once Basescu realized how difficult and risky it was to have early elections, he stepped back. And he will do the same about the one-Chamber Parliament idea too. As for the sacking of secret service chiefs, Basescu was the first to mention it and presently bring the Coalition in offside. But which Coalition? Right now the score of the rulers' game is 3 to 1. There are PNL, UDMR (the Democrat Union of Hungarians in Romania) and PC (the Conservative Party) against PD. By commuting from Cluj to Bucharest and back, Emil Boc rules the latter party, sticking too close to president Basescu so that any time relations between the two palaces' officials are seized with tension, that is more and more frequently, PD has to play against, but not along Coalition partners. Despite it, there are clues that waters are gradually troubling in PD too. Because of the failure to accomplish the objectives set in Coalition Protocols, the Coalition becomes useless. It survives only due to the mechanism of power, but it is not working. The engine is broken and the Coalition can be torn apart by Cotroceni artillery at any time, because the latter has proved to be much more efficient with the rulers than with the opposition. Or the government will collapse under the unprecedented force of union protests.

Sorin Rosca Stanescu