Georgia State vs. Romania

Georgia’s state and local governments are more committed to protecting their citizens from possible unethical behavior of their public officials than the Romanian authorities. At the state level, Georgia has an Ethics Commission and ethics legislation in place. “It is declared to be the policy of the state to protect the integrity of the democratic process and to ensure fair elections; to institute and establish a requirement of public disclosure of campaign contributions and expenditures and to make sure that the state’s public affairs are best served by disclosures of significant private interests of public officers and officials which may influence the discharge of their public duties and responsibilities” (The Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Act of 2010).

What is more important though is that the Commission is actually investigating cases that can be seen online. I could search over 700 cases which ended in administrative dismissals, commission orders, compliance agreements, consent orders, or dismissals. Romania, on the other hand, has a national agency called “The National Agency for Integrity.” Apart from the big bureaucracy that is regulating it, one can hardly find 100 cases of investigations.

At a local level, it is notable to mention the outreach efforts of nonprofits that are urging local administrations to pass ethics legislation. Such a program is the “Certified Cities of Ethics Program,” run by Georgia Municipal Association and supported by a large number of organizations. The program emerged after concerns over a trend towards less confidence in public officials. Certification under this program is a way to recognize cities that have adopted principles and procedures that offer guidance on ethical issues, along with a mechanism to resolve complaints at the local level. To become cities of ethics, local administrations first need to adopt a resolution subscribing to five ethics principles:

1. Serve others, not ourselves.
2. Use resources with efficiency and economy.
3. Treat all people fairly.
4. Use the power of our position for the well-being of our constituents.
5. And create an environment of honesty, openness and integrity.

Second, they need to pass an ordinance that contains definitions, an enumeration of permissible and impermissible activities by elected officials, due process procedures for elected officials charged with a violation of the ordinance and punishment provisions for elected officials who have been found in violation of the ordinance.

The program has already certified 226 cities, 3 counties and 5 organizations. It is a very good track record, although there is still much work to be done given that the State of Georgia has 159 counties and 624 cities and townships. In Romania, the behavior of the county and city council members is vaguely endorsed by the Charter of the County / Local Council:  elected County / City Council officials have to conduct their activity with honor and correctness; it is forbidden for them to request money, goods or advantages. Council members also file a declaration of interests and a declaration of assets.

What is at stake? A lot of money. Here is some budget data for fiscal year 2011 in the State of Georgia and Romania. These budgets pay for our education, healthcare, security, transportation infrastructure, to name but a few. They provide the backbone of our lifestyle and for having better communities.

State of Georgia (United States) budgets vs. Romania budgets

From my point of view, one of the greatest challenges to have stronger ethics legislation put in place is to raise awareness among citizens that ethics in government is important to their communities and to their increased standard of living. We need to find methods to engage them more effectively in the debate about ethics reform and give them stronger tools to put pressure on elected officials to pass ethics legislation. (Article published on Common Cause Georgia’s blog).

Mircea Geoana, the Social Democratic Party (left) and Traian Basescu, the Liberal Democratic Party (right) during the single presidential debate on TV. Photo source: www.basescu.ro

The Americans have seen this in 2000, when George Bush won his first term in office over Al Gore. Of course, the scale is different, but the feeling is the same. Incumbent President Traian Basescu managed to have an overnight win over social-democrat Mircea Geoana. From over 18,000,000 million people who were eligible to vote, approximately 10,600,000 went to vote and the difference between the two is of approximately 70,000 votes. On December 6, at 9 pm polls announced a 51.6% win for Mircea Geoana, who proclaimed victory. The polls were based on the results of the votes till 7pm. The voting ended at 9pm and it seems that Traian Basescu managed to catch up and take the lead with 50.33%. This is also what happened five years ago, when he had won the same way over Adrian Nastase, the candidate of the same Social Democratic Party. Now, there are some lessons to learn from this:

• never trust polls ….. not at least in elections.
• if all the political parties unite against one political party, that does not necessarily mean that the new coalition wins.
• if something can go wrong, it will go wrong….I mean that in times of economic crisis, overlapped with a two-month political crisis, the situation is likely to worsen….the coalition has a majority in parliament, which means that the government will not be endorsed because the president will nominate a prime minister from the single winning party and not someone supported by the coalition.
• citizens will not be better off from this game.
• the image of Romania abroad and the confidence of “doing business with Romania” will be affected.

What could be the solution to this situation? On the long run, the political class has to change and the now-young professionals must run for elected offices and win key positions in government. On the short run, it has to be a compromise made by the current political leaders who, by the way, had key government positions during communism, 20 years ago, too.

More info from BBC: Romania opposition alleges fraud in presidential poll.

Over 200 young people were still waiting outside to vote, when voting time was up.

Only 5 voting booths in the voting section

It is quite difficult for me to explain how you want to vote, go to vote, waste five hours, and still not vote! But this is possible in Romania. Last Sunday, we had elections for the new President of Romania. Because I wasn’t in my hometown, I had to vote in a special voting section in Bucharest. I went to the first one at around 4 pm. The line was huge, so I went to another one in the downtown. The same story there. Eventually, I went to a more remote one and stayed in line. There were many fraud allegations with the so called “touristic voting” so I said that may be the “tourists” will only go to downtown  voting sections and not to the ones at the outskirts. Anyway, the line was also big at the section that I decided to stay, which is situated in a student campus. By 9pm, when the voting ended according to the law, I was still in line outside. Together with me, there were at least 200 other young people.

This story happened at every “special section.” I heard in the news that thousands could not vote due to the very poor organization of the voting. To me, it was the first time when I missed a vote. Even in the US, I went to the Romanian Consulate in Los Angeles to vote. Besides the President, we had to vote whether we want a two-chamber parliament with 471 members, as it is now, or a one-chamber parliament with 300 members. I want to have a one-chamber parliament. This is also what approximately 80% of the Romanians want, so apparently we will have a smaller and hopefully more efficient Parliament. The turnout was pretty good. From over 18,000,000 eligible voters, approximately 55% voted.

EU Observer: Romanian president holds narrow lead after first round.

CNN: Romanians vote amid political crisis.