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USR's Nicusor Dan: Romanians await new people in politics
Chairman of the Save Romania Union (USR) Nicusor Dan stated in an interview given to AGERPRES, that Romanians have the choice between transparent, honest, European governance and 'feudal' governance in the December 11 elections.
Nicusor Dan also spoke about the draft laws that his political formation wants to promote, but also about the manner in which he believes it should be amended both the electoral threshold and the minimum number of signatures that a party needs in order to run for the elections.
He stated that the Union currently has 2,000 members, after rejecting more than half the persons who wanted to enroll in the political formation.
AGERPRES: Last week you made an electoral tour in Transylvania. What were the main messages that people conveyed to you? What are they expecting from the next Parliament, from the next Government?
Nicusor Dan: People are just like the opinion polls say they are - totally unpleased with the way in which Romania was led in the past 27 years. They await new people in politics, and as far as they know the USR - because we don't have the notoriety that we would have wanted - they support it, because they see new people in the USR, people that haven't done politics, people like them. If you were to ask 99 percent of my colleagues a year ago if they want to get into politics, they would have said that you are crazy. Therefore, they are the people that, under normal circumstances wouldn't have done politics, people who have a profession, a normal relation with other people.
AGERPRES: You said that you expect a good score from Cluj. What are the branches where you estimate that you will have good results and where do you feel you haven't succeeded to win over the electorate?
Nicusor Dan: On Friday and Saturday I will go to Oltenia. I am equally optimistic regarding the other areas. We have succeeded - although time was very short - to create branches in all the counties of Romania. From what my colleagues say, the ones who go to the meetings that we have, people everywhere expect something new - and if they know about USR - they are heading towards the USR. Obviously we are at an advantage in the large university centers. Therefore, the more Facebook and online environment are present, the better people learn more about the USR, but I am optimistic on a global level.
AGERPRES: The USR had some strict criteria for accepting new members. What is the profile of the USR candidates?
Nicusor Dan: First regarding the members: they must be people that weren't involved in politics, people that are not suspected of not being honest, having contracts with the state or things of that nature. Certainly many people with this profile have tried to enter the party, but we rejected them. We have rejected more than half of the people that have tried to come to us. When choosing the candidates, the election was done according to the statute. Each of the candidates had to write a parliamentary activity project and the elections were secret - just as is stipulated in the law, and in our statute - in every branch and the most competent people were chosen. Thereby, we have many people who come from the private area, people who come from the academic environment, we have young entrepreneurs, we also have women, and men, and I believe each one of them is a professional individual. We also have enough lawyers - Parliament needs them.
AGERPRES: You were to receive the results of some opinion poll. Did you receive them?
Nicusor Dan: Yes, I have. Currently only the numbers. The Social Democratic Party (PSD) 40 percent, the USR 19 percent, the National Liberal Party (PNL) 18 percent and the other parties have under ten percent. It is a poll that has been carried out in the past ten days, on a thousand people with an error margin of 3 percent.
AGERPRES: How do you comment these results and this ascending trend, practically of the USR?
Nicusor Dan: It's unexpectedly good, given the resources and the time, and the limited materials that we had. Initially we set a target of 10 percent. After a poll which was carried out in September said that we have 10 percent, we planned to get to 10-15 percent. Now, we're over that, too. Anyway, I learned of them two hours ago and I had time to reflect on them. It is a bigger responsibility considering the hundreds of people with whom I have discussed these days on the street and who say they will vote for us are putting their faith into us. Then the responsibility is bigger.
AGERPRES: It is a poll carried out by ...
Nicusor Dan: It is a poll carried out by (...), the company which we worked with for the polls in the local elections, who also said back then that we are ahead of the National Liberal Party (PNL) in Bucharest. Many people contradicted us, but the result was as they predicted.
AGERPRES: Analyzing the poll results, some analysts say that the USR would take from the PNL electorate. Why do you believe that you haven't managed to equally draw in the Social Democrat electorate?
Nicusor Dan: We have a difficulty - both for time and material reasons - in reaching all the kinds of public. Maybe in Bucharest, when we garnered 25 percent - the party, and myself - 30 percent for the city hall, maybe our notoriety was under 70 percent. Now it is even more difficult. The notoriety - we have measured it, but I don't know it right now. I was only told on the phone the figures that I have told you. Our notoriety I believe stands at under 50 percent at the moment and we have a difficulty in reaching certain types of public. However, we have measures addressing this public. Namely, we speak of programmes, of anti-poverty [measures]. We support this project which the Ciolos Government has launched to aid the internal migration for jobs, therefore I am very optimistic that, as the world hears about us and our activity, be it in Bucharest or nationwide, we'll have a message for all the kinds of public.
AGERPRES: Based on the results of the poll you have presented, whom do you see by your and the PNL's side to make up a parliamentary majority?
Nicusor Dan: It is a discussion which we must have with the final results, because in two weeks and a half many things can happen. We maintain the idea of a prime minister who is not a party member and thus has no obligations to any of the interest groups inside each party. We'll negotiate very clearly the governance programme. We have already said it and we maintain it: we will not ask for minister or secretary of state positions, we will not enter this type of negotiation, we will let the prime minister choose the person he sees most suited in Romania. However, we will have a word to say about the ministers designated by the other parties. We don't want to endorse a government with controversial persons and we won't do it.
AGERPRES: One of the reproaches brought against you following the activity in the local councils, in Bucharest, was that you haven't come up with sufficient projects. What would be the first legislative proposals you wish to support after entering Parliament?
Nicusor Dan: This reproach is ungrounded. On the one hand, because we have come up with projects. In District 1, our colleagues' project for the new location of the burn hospital was approved. We have been very happy that the other parties voted for it. In the General Council, just to give two examples, we filed the project with the audit for hospitals, which I find important. We proposed the project with the signage in hospitals and the structuring of the medical activity in Bucharest. We opposed damaging projects, but we voted for projects that are positive for Bucharest. There haven't been many too consistent, we obviously opposed things such as RADET's [thermal energy distribution company] entering insolvency, in other words, the general councilors leaving the responsibility of RADET to an official receiver. We obviously couldn't agree with this: the risk for RADET to even enter bankruptcy.
On a Parliament level we have three essential things that we care for. One: we want to change the quality of the politician and the manner of relating to the citizen - and you will see that we shall have all those compulsory meetings the law provides for parliamentarians. You will see that we'll hold them on a weekly basis, as the law stipulates. On the other hand, we want to bring to Parliament, at last, people who have something to say, from the society. For them to voice their opinion in Parliament. Therefore, we shall have debates besides each of the Parliament committees with representative players of the society, because they, together, have much more experience than 400 people 'locked down' in Parliament.
Certainly, we'll always vote against extended immunity, we'll vote against special pensions. In brief, we want to promote the idea of the politician who truly fights for the community and not for himself. This is one matter. The second: we are very concerned with the administrative body, with the public administration of Romania. We want to stop the robbery from public money, we want an electronic system constantly tracking everything that means public procurement and automatically detecting fraud in public procurement, which SEAP [public procurement system] doesn't do now. We want to remove the discretionary allotment of funds by the Development Ministry and organise project contests based on criteria, same as European money is allotted. In brief, we don't want to see that we have parks in villages instead of toilets in schools.
We are very much interested in making public administration efficient, having full transparency and, in addition, interaction of the citizen with the authority, a very simple one, so the citizens isn't forced to run from one administrative unit to another.
At last, for everything that means education, healthcare and the budget needs to have a fundament, we want to go to a truly competitive economic environment, including tenders, and eliminate local pressures which occur in many places, abusive checkups that are done at the initiative of the political factor, and encourage those types of top industries - a few, obviously - where Romania has a competitive advantage, be it the IT, the pharmaceutical area, or the nanotechnology area, so that we can be an important player on the global market in certain areas and manage to keep in Romania people of value, and, certainly, encourage the industries at the ground of those top industries.
AGERPRES: The Save Romania Union's (USR) program refers to a reform of public acquisitions which legislates the standardization of prices where public authorities can purchase goods and services. How is the standardization done?
Nicusor Dan: It is a very simple thing which people cannot understand. Certain products can be compared as regards the price of the product purchased by the administrative unit and the shelf price from 10 - 15 retailers in Romania, and in this way, any deviation is identified. Of course, you can do that to hundreds of thousands of products and automatically, the deviations are detected. If an administrative unit has bought a product three times more expensive than the ones from the list, it means there is a problem.
AGERPRES: The governing program shows you want to reduce the number of signatures needed to run in elections, stimulating local political parties' presence, and reducing the electoral threshold. Concretely, what do you think the number of signatures provided by the legislation for parliamentary elections and the electoral threshold should be?
Nicusor Dan: Undoubtedly, the Mayor should be elected in two rounds because, probably, if the law would have provided the two-round election, the Bucharest Mayor would have been another and the Bucharest people's life would've been different. This is a debate we can have. Obviously, we will not have a majority in the Parliament. I can mention now some numbers that I find reasonable. I believe the number of signatures needed should be ten times lower. For now, the required quota for every election, except the parliamentary one: 1 pct of people with the right to vote. In the case of parliamentary elections: 200.000 signatures. We say it would be more reasonable to have 20.000, and the electoral threshold should be 2 pct or 3 pct instead of 5 pct and, in any case, an electoral threshold that is much more permissive in forming alliances. Because, at this point, it is inadmissible to have the threshold of 8 pct for a two-party alliance to be formed.
AGERPRES: In the USR program you also refer to increasing the funding in education and professor's salaries. Recently, there was a debate on increasing the salaries. How do you envisage the salary growth and how high should it be and how long would it take to be achieved?
Nicusor Dan: In our program we say that at the end of the four years of mandate the education and health systems' growth should be at 6 pct. There was a long debate on increasing the salaries going on. This debate must take place simultaneously with two instruments. One: state budget, as you cannot say one month before [the elections] that 'I will increase the salary and then we'll look for money in the state budget'. Two: the law of uniform pay, which I hope will be brought into public debate by the Government until the end of its mandate, for establishing the ratio between the salary of all bureaucrats, so that salary increases do not happen, but as is the case for pensions, when there is an economic growth, the increase is proportional to all the people, otherwise, with each pressure somebody's salary is being increased and there are always disparities, particularly for those who do not protest, and that is not correct.
AGERPRES: The program also shows that the Romanian agriculture has been affected by two extremes: the subsistence farms and big exploitations. What would be the USR's proposal to fix this issue?
Nicusor Dan: This time, the proposal comes explicitly from the Ciolos Government's program, which in its turn, originates from a measure that Mr Ciolos as a EU commissar brought to the Common Agricultural Policy. It is an attempt to have a medium class in the rural areas; in short, to create - between the subsistence farms and biggest exploitations - exploitations of reasonable sizes, family [enterprises], where that family will have access to funding. Now the policy is applied at a too high level, where only few can afford it. Thus, a family can have a decent life, affording to send their children to university and create a village services market that would reduce the discrepancy between rural and urban.
AGERPRES: If you to think of potential Prime Ministers proposed by other political parties - National Liberal Party (PNL), Social Democratic Party (PSD), Popular Movement Party (PMP), Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR), and Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group (ALDE) - who would they be?
Nicusor Dan: I do not know. Now it seems that things have been highly simplified. There is a proposal supported by both USR and PNL and a counterproposal soon must be made. It would be helpful for us to know PSD's and its satellites' proposal as soon as possible. I think our option is the one Romanians will take on 11 December and knowing the PSD's history against the rule of law, against justice action, repeated handouts by PSD MPs to their prosecuted and indicted colleagues, for instance, the disbandment of the commission that analyzed Mr Ponta's plagiarism, I believe that the option is between European transparent, honest governance and feudal governance based on self-interest.
AGERPRES: Describe in one word the following politicians: Klaus Iohannis, Dacian Ciolos, Liviu Dragnea, Alina Gorghiu, Traian Basescu, Victor Ponta, Elena Udrea, Vasile Blaga, Calin Popescu-Tariceanu, Ion Iliescu, Mircea Ionescu-Quintus, Crin Antonescu, Adrian Nastase, Kelemen Hunor.
Nicusor Dan: In one word, it's very hard for me to do it. Klaus Iohannis is a less active politician than I would have wanted him to be, but he has been a supporter of the rule of law ever since he took office, and he is a factor of stability in Romania; Dacian Ciolos - a competent man with lots of common sense. If you want me to add a negative or critical nuance, perhaps he is too conciliatory. Liviu Dragnea - convicted for election rigging; Alina Gorghiu is a politician who takes pains to perform - with more or less success - a ballet among the inner party forces pulling in different directions. Traian Basescu - a very talented politician, but I think that in time he has backpedaled on so many subjects, he has made contradictory statements so often that his popularity is quite low now; Victor Ponta is, in my opinion, a man obsessed with his own image and who has taken many irresponsible stances in time, and in the first place a man who has stolen for his doctoral thesis.
Elena Udrea - a highly ambitious person, who however didn't have a matching inner consistency and stands under major suspicions of corruption; Vasile Blaga - I met him in 2008 when he was a running for Bucharest mayor, and I was impressed with how well prepared he was and how savvy he was about everything related to urban development and the development of other European capitals. On the other hand, he steered a corrupt party and stands himself under major suspicions of corruption. Calin Popescu-Tariceanu - lately he seems to me an inconsistent and particularly harmful politician through his stances against the rule of law and Romania's judiciary; Ion Iliescu is responsible for Romania's failed start in the '90s; Mircea Ionescu-Quintus - I only know him a little, I know who he is, but I have little knowledge of his public presence and I'd rather not express an opinion. Crin Antonescu - a talented politician, I myself voted for him in 2009, he rekindled hope in many people. Unfortunately, he didn't live up to these hopes; Adrian Nastase - a very intelligent man, but who was blinded by the lust for power and who led Romania during a time when corruption was at its highest; Kelemen Hunor - a cultured man, he is able to deliver a speech in English at the Athenaeum, but he broke his word toward me once and I cannot forget this. It was about the demolitions in Bucharest, when he was serving as Minister of Culture ...
AGERPRES: How do you comment on Liviu Dragnea's statements about the election being allegedly rigged?
Nicusor Dan: It's the top irony that a man who was handed down a final sentence for election rigging points the finger to others over rigging attempts.
AGERPRES: You did have a reaction to the one who launched the accusation, but do you have a reaction to the accusation itself?
Nicusor Dan: I can tell you that when there has been a reasonable suspicion of fraud in Bucharest Sector 1 or doubts arose about the election results in Sector 1, the demand of the Save Bucharest Union of that time for a vote recount - nothing more - just to open the bags and count the ballot papers, came against the opposition of all parties - PSD, PNL and all their satellites. What all those who have ever been in a polling station have told me, especially in rural area, is that this is a practice that repeats at every election cycle. That's why we urged our supporters to register as delegates and representatives at the polling stations. We asked the government - and I hope they solve this until election day - to amend the government decision stating that the bags with the ballot papers are kept only three years. I'd want them to be kept for ten years and anyone, at any time, be able to come - without influencing the election results or sparking chaos - to look in the bags and see if there are significant differences, for us to start prosecuting the people who signed the minutes. So we want this responsibility and a real possibility of control to exist. Apart from this, the two measures the Government has taken, that ballot counting be captured on camera and the cross-deployment of the police officers to watch over the electoral process, these are positive steps.
AGERPRES: The most common criticism during the campaign and pre-campaign had to do with some of the USR candidates allegedly receiving funding from the Soros Foundation. How do you comment on this?
Nicusor Dan: I don't understand why this should be a reason for criticism. I myself, just like probably another 10,000 people, have taken a 400-dollar financing from the Soros Foundation in the '90s to pay for my train ticket to attend a conference at a mathematics summer school in Italy. I didn't have that money in the '90s. I went, I returned, those courses benefited my career. I don't owe anyone.
I think this is an attempt fueled from several media areas to cover real corruption in Romania. Tens of thousands of hectares of forest have been stolen, tens of millions of euros have been embezzled in infrastructure works. So this is in my opinion the real problem in Romania, not the fact that some people participating in some very transparent competitions have taken money for some activities, just like anyone who performs a job.
AGERPRES: You said that for the local elections your campaign relied on the efforts and work of 200 members and one thousand supporters. What is the situation in the country now?
Nicusor Dan: I estimate that nationwide we have about 2,000 members and 5,000 - 6,000 supporters. But when we collected the 350,000 signatures we had people who are not entered in any database, just common people who brought us the lists of signatures they had gathered. And I expect exactly these people to spread our message.
AGERPRES: To what extent have you used your knowledge, your training as a mathematician, since you entered politics?
Nicusor Dan: Mathematics, in short, is about putting the world around you in order. Physics is more empirical, mathematics is the tool whereby we put the physical world in order. And I believe that the Romanian society needs to be put in order and I think this is one of my qualities, of knowing how to put order in an association, in a party that came into being and, hopefully, in administration too.