Vivid Election 2004 November 2004

Regulars
ELECTIONS 2004
The PD-PNL’s political programme: more soundbite than substance

by Mark Percival
November 2004

Late last month, the PD-PNL Alliance issued a policy document listing their ‘priorities’ should they be elected in November, defined as business, education, health, social policy and agriculture. It was good at least to have some kind of policy statement, since up to now, substance has been noticeably lacking from their declarations. However the document still leaves many questions as to what they actually stand for. Unlike the PSD-PUR, who issued a full programme of over 200 pages, the Alliance document is only one tenth of the size.

Sadly, it is not a concise description of clear policies to take Romania forward. Instead, it is just as lacking in substance as the manifesto issued by PSD, with a few interesting proposals mixed in with a large amount of rhetoric of which Tony Blair, the master of political soundbite, would be proud. There is no mention of critical issues like justice, even though reform in this area is essential to establish a state based on the rule of law and a functioning market economy. The PD-PNL have not yet told us whether they will have a foreign policy, which is absent from their document entirely, while reform of public administration, taking up several pages in PSD’s programme, is mentioned only in passing. The PD-PNL’s reluctance to issue a full manifesto compares very poorly with major political parties in developed countries, which issue detailed policy documents long before elections, later transformed into manifestos once the campaign is announced. The PD-PNL apparently prefers to keep the electorate guessing.

The programme says nothing about media freedom, even though this is a critical issue for the establishment of genuine democracy in Romania, and has been the focus of increased international attention in recent months, including from the EU Commission. Although the PD-PNL programme does state that debt rescheduling for political reasons will end, it makes no specific reference to placing private television channels on a genuinely commercial and independent footing by forcing them to pay their debts to the state. This issue is so important that it ought to be mentioned specifically in the political programme of any party genuinely committed to media independence, the rule of law and a functioning market economy. The fact that PD-PNL prefers to avoid this issue suggests that it is more concerned with short-term favours from the media during the election campaign than with real reform.

Equally, nothing is said about ending the abuse of public money to buy advertising space in the print media with the aim of influencing the editorial line, or about resolving the many serious pressures against the independent media in the provinces, which have been well documented by Romanian and international NGOs. This lack of comment on media freedom can only imply that PD-PNL do not see the issue as a priority and if they achieve power may well prefer to maintain the current cosy relationship between government and media which exists under the present administration. If the Alliance is really committed to change in this field, they should make a clear declaration that if they win power that private television channels will be forced to pay their debts to the state, and that government advertising will be placed strictly according to commercial criteria and not depend on a newspaper’s editorial line.

In contrast to this document’s numerous omissions, the one positive area where clear and sound policies are set out is on taxation. PD-PNL has finally committed themselves to a 16 per cent flat tax, which a number of NGOs and analysts have been promoting for some time. In addition, profit tax would be reduced from 25 per cent to 16 per cent, while tax on social security contributions would go down from 49.5 per cent to 39 per cent. Both the reduction and the simplification will greatly benefit the business climate and increase budget revenue from taxation as incentives for legal or illegal evasion are reduced. The proposed harmonisation of business and private taxes closely follows the successful model introduced in Slovakia last January, which has already led to an increase in foreign direct investment (FDI) in that country. The PD-PNL proposal would set Romania’s flat tax 3 per cent lower than Slovakia’s, giving the country a comparative advantage, although it would still be 3 per cent higher than the rate introduced in 2001 in Russia, and more recently in Ukraine. These proposals would help attract FDI to Romania, which should be a key priority of any government, since the per capita figure is still several times lower than that in the 2004 EU accession countries.

Overall, though, this document is disappointing. Even the flat tax is hardly a bold departure, since the benefits have been so clearly proved in other countries that the policy is now widely accepted by many analysts of both left and right as a sine qua non of a transition economy. It is actually a sign of the Alliance’s reluctance to commit to clear policies that it has taken them so long even to adopt this measure into their programme. Other aspects of the document are clearly related to winning votes, particularly in rural areas where the PSD is strong, yet with no clear explanation as to how promised facilities will be financed. So teachers’ salaries will be doubled, new schools will be built in the countryside and existing ones modernised, better medical facilities will be offered in rural communities and costs of medicines will be reduced. These are all welcome measures, but the electorate has a right to know how the Alliance intends to pay for them. They must explain either how these plans relate to economic growth and increased government revenue, or what other areas of the budget will be cut in order to compensate. Just as in the PSD document, figures for projected salaries and pensions are thrown in with no real economic facts to back them up, and have an element of populism. The PD-PNL’s proposed minimum monthly pension of 110 euros simply looks like thinking of a number a little higher than the PSD’s offer of 100 euros.

The main basis of electoral support for the PD-PNL and their recent success in local elections is a profound disappointment with the PSD. Most of the electorate are deeply disillusioned with the entire political class, and may simply cast their votes for the Alliance in order to put the current government out of power. The Alliance seems to be relying on that, yet may well find that without defining more clearly a positive vision of change, negative sentiment alone will not be strong enough to resist the PSD machine.

Mark Percival is the Managing Director of Romania Think Tank. More on Romania Think Tank can be found at its website, www.rtt.ro