The embarrassing scandal in the Parliament yesterday - plotted last Monday by Corneliu Vadim Tudor and PRM ("Great Romania" Party) groups so that the President of Romania would get booed - is indescribable national shame. The PRM hoards carrying whistles, waving red cards and banners with defaming messages were brought by Vadim himself, led to balconies and instigated to cry out, boo and threat so that there would be a boycott. The episode resembles somehow the coal miners' attacks against the demonstrators in Bucharest, when civilians were a mass to be manipulated by politicians. In yesterday's parliamentary session there were some verbal violence and some physical aggression that could have had a fatal denouement, since the balcony balustrade was less than 70 centimeters high and simple loss of physical balance was enough for someone to fall down. While Vadim was crying out his threats an ambush was about to occur and people in the balcony could have fallen over the people down. It was all meant to satisfy Vadim's unbound fury. Red with rage, he was ordering his hoards to crowd into balconies. (...) As if gone astray, he would miss no opportunity to boast about his official position as vice president of the Senate so that no one would dare prevent his way. (...) Vacaroiu's complicity (...) Senate president Nicolae Vacaroiu chaired yesterday's session. But he did nothing he was allowed to restore order, although it was his duty to do it. He thus proved that he had an agreement with Vadim or that he enjoyed the hooligan's behavior. Yesterday he made a public statement claiming he had had "a difficult mission, hard to handle", although he hadn't tried to make Vadim behave. He claimed he was afraid there would follow some beating. Although article 17 in the regulation entitled him to evacuate the noisy 'PRM guests' from balconies, he didn't call in the guards to restore public order.

Razvan SAVALIUC