It is not Vasile Blaga who has lost Bucharest, it is Traian Basescu who has lost Romania's capital city! There is a row of fatal mistakes behind the President, like the white pebbles dropped by Hansel and Gretel. Traian Basscu was head over heels involved in the electoral campaign, actually more involved than allowed by caution and interests. This is the first mistake. Vasile Blaga was perceived as "Basescu's man". The head of state didn't expect a defeat and he was not cautious. He just threw himself in it although there was no net underneath. And he lost. Vasile Blaga's defeat is now effecting on him. And it is all the more serious as it is in his own domain. Let me use my memory to quote something Adrian Nastase says anytime he is seized with nostalgia: "Had there been no Bucharest, I would have been the president of Romania!" The Bucharest inhabitants proved able of solidarity in 2004 in order to overthrow the post-Front of National Salvation regime of Ion Iliescu and Adrian Nastase and so they elected Traian Basescu a President. In 2008, the latter can no longer manage to persuade the Bucharest inhabitants and the orange electorate prefers staying at home, feeling offended because of being proposed a dyslexic candidate with poor knowledge of grammar, with a past in the Front for National Salvation and with a call for being a policeman. But the dream Ion Iliescu has been dreaming for 18 year is thus coming true: he is a winner of Bucharest, right now getting ready for his third settlement. This clue is as bad as possible for Traian Basescu. His 2000 enthusiasm, the one he proved when he started his campaign as candidate wishing to take over the City Hal and then over the Cotroceni Palace, seems to be running out. He is like a van stuck in the mud, in vain spurring the horse power on the muddy lane. He is making more noise and dirt than progress. Parliamentary elections are due over a few months. And which is the present state of things? The ascent of the PD-L (Democrat-Liberal Party) reached a peak right after the President was suspended last year. The party was enjoying almost 50% and Traian Basescu's dream to govern without alliances didn't look like utopia any more. The PD-L has now got less than 30% and the defeat suffered in Bucharest can but spur the downtrend. With all the respect for Traian Basescu's skill at plots, I don't think there are political tricks that haven't been invented, so that he and his party can use them to change the wind. It is therefore expected that after this autumn's elections Traian Basescu should face a Parliament 70% hostile to him and ready to get him suspended in order to fetch a convenient PM. And his comeback to Cotroceni doesn't look as certain as the first time. So? "Alone against everybody" has proved a slogan appealing to the mob, still inefficient in real politics. Traian Basescu has approached everything not belonging to the presidential party like a whole. Big mistake! Right now in the PNL (National Liberal Party) and in the PSD (Social-Democrat Party) there are no sides Presidency can talk to. Ludovic Orban, for instance, a considerable alternative to Calin Popescu Tariceanu and a constant enemy of the PSD, would have been a starting point for an initiative to prevent an abnormal alliance such as the one between the PNL and the PSD. But on the contrary, the terms between Ludovic Orban and Traian Basescu have been even hotter than the ones between the President and the PM. And it was only a few days ago when a good idea crossed the President's mind and he praised Ludovic Orban's campaign for his candidacy in the Bucharest general mayor election. It was too late and useless. And it has rather pushed Ludovic Orban down. On the other side there was Mircea Geoana, no matter how funny he should be, still a president of the PSD. He could have been the person to address in order to shape an alternative to Ion Iiescu. Now the latter has undoubtedly taken control over the PSD and Adrian Nastase is eager to grab power. Mircea Geoana knelt down in front of the Daddy and kissed his feet, admitting he was a master and a sovereign, so that he would save himself. He still is the president of the party for the time being, but he will be just a puppet, until the time comes for Adrian Nastase to enter the stage again. A row of major mistakes made by Traian Basescu is about to give power to Ion Iliescu again, as well as to his old gang, hardened during so many coal miners' attacks and cases of deceitful privatization. Perhaps I am wrong and the President's mind has still got political tricks in store. Perhaps in his topper there is left at least one trick able to put an end to the electorate's apathy. Otherwise, this will be the third on Ion Iliescu's scroll. The first was defeated by the "intelligence agencies", the second was defeated by the Communist Secret Service (so severely that he is now allied to the winners). And it is possible that we should get to live the day and hear the third one admit: "The villainous system has defeated me." Nicolae Ceausescu, Emil Constantinescu and Traian Basescu were all fatally wrong: they thought Ion Iliescu was history. But it was him who turned them into history.

Adrian PATRUSCA