How far can corruption go in a month?

Teodor Popescu
Sep 4, 2018 · 7 min read

Quitting my job almost 2 months ago led to spending some time in my home country, Romania, before coming back to London for the next venture.

Besides the usual customs and the joy of spending time with family and friends in the place where I spent my childhood and teenage years, it felt like going back in time into an oppressive regime, where none of the modern world values exist, where inequality flourishes, corruption is almost incredibly visible, education is significantly lacking and the government abuses citizens on a daily basis. Where worldwide known performers, top intellectuals, doctors , engineers and sportsmen are disrespected by a wide group of irrefutable illiterate, corrupt and overnight enriched people dominating politics and business. All this, in Bucharest, the capital.

Before I go on detailing several points, I wanted to mention that this is the country I would eventually like to go back to. It is otherwise a splendid country full of natural wonders, a great atmosphere, where I grew up and met wonderful, ambitious, kind-hearted and incredibly smart people.

Note: If it weren’t for personal experiences where I was close to lose my life due to a car crash, where a very drunk man with no driving license hit our car from behind on a country road and ran away after the incident, where I had to face local authorities (ambulance, police and hospital) and their lack of professionalism, this post would have not existed due to my patriotism and strong desire for Romania to progress into a developed state with European values.

The time spent here revealed the level of corruption, otherwise slightly omitted by most of the Romanians living abroad . Let’s quantify a set of events that happened during the past month below:

  1. 10th August 2018: Major protests in Bucharest, where Romanians living abroad came home to manifest their dissatisfaction with the current government and its measures. Romanian Gendarmerie throws big quantities of tear gas into rioters, intervenes to push them and end the protest, hurting not only the group of provoking hooligans but innocent people, children, pregnant women, disabled people, the elderly and peaceful citizens protesting (including me). They later chased and abused the same innocent people to end the dissent. Photos below:
Protest captions on 10th August, 2018.

Fun fact: Romanian Gendarmerie (Jandarmeria Romana) Facebook rating went from 4.6 to 1.1 within 24 hours of the protest.

Romanian Gendarmerie rating

Further investigations are ongoing but so far proved the violence was ordered by government forces, including Minister of Internal Affairs and leading social-democratic party representatives. Not only have they hurt the protesters, but tourists, foreign TV channel representatives and a 101-year old Romanian philosopher, former Minister of Education, Honorary Member of Romanian Academy, Mihai Sora.

Romanian leading politicians reactions were as follows:

  • Norica Nicolai, Member of the European Parliament, stated that she suspects photos and videos with policemen beating people are fake.
  • Liviu Dragnea, President of the Chamber of Deputies and President of the Social Democratic Party, declared that the protests represented a failed coup tentative, praising the policemen for their actions
  • Calin Popescu Tariceanu, President of the Senate, blamed the foreign intelligence services, the anti-corruption organizations and the justice system as a compact group for the organized protest.

2. 6th July, 2018: A policeman was sanctioned at work for supporting an anti-corruption initiative: banning people with criminal record from holding public sector positions. A pro-cause bracelet and his refuse to take it off led the policeman to being refused his weapon, sent home and asked to attend psychologist sessions.

The initiative has been signed by over one million people and it is currently ongoing. It is one of the best proofs of the Romanian people’s fight against corruption.

3. 28th August, 2018: Social Democratic Party village Mayor abused the same initiative volunteers and kicks them out of the Town Hall after verbal abuse. Video below:

Mayor physically abuses anti-corruption campaign representatives

4. 3rd September 2018: Former Minister of Public Finance, Social Democratic Party senator Darius Valcov publishes on social media one of #rezist campaign leaders’ medical record, followed by insults, in what is perceived to be a threatening message and an attempt to claim that anti-corruption protesters are mentally sick.

Note: #Rezist is an anti-corruption campaign, symbol of street protests started in 2016 that eventually led to the fall of the government

  • Current Minister of Labor, Lia Olguta Vasilescu defends the act, stating the medical record data is purely administrative, denying any misconduct.
  • Not only is this a GDPR breach but an abuse of authority

5. 31st August, 2018: Niculae Badalau, Senator and Member of Social Democratic Party, is filmed while addressing together with a live band several swear words towards Romanian diaspora, inviting them to come back home to disrespect them accordingly (Note: The latest protest on 10th August was organized by Romanians living abroad).

Video below:

6. 30th July, 2018: Romanian citizen with Swedish enrolled vehicle number MUIEPSD ( translated F**k PSD), was issued a criminal record by local police forces, days after he entered the country.

Note: PSD is the Romanian version of the Social Democratic Party.

  • He was initially allowed to enter the country, vehicle numbers being considered as valid. He drove around the country for 10 days and was stopped 4 times by the police, with no major events worth mentioning.
  • After the vehicle number went viral on social media, the driver was sanctioned by authorities in Bucharest and the number was declared illegal.

What would have happened if a Swedish, not Romanian citizen entered the country with the same number? Is this considered an abuse? Is it perfectly legal? It seems that the Romanian Police was not sure either.

7. 2nd September 2018 : Car accident I was involved in. A 36 year old, drunk man with no driving license hit our car with 130km/h, from behind while our vehicle speed was around 50km/h. He immediately ran away from the accident spot, being later caught by the police.

This once again revealed public service significant issues. Police arrived 30 mins after the clash, the ambulance arrived one hour afterwards. Policemen refused to identify themselves and treated victims visibly disrespectful (noted by doctors, witnesses and us). I personally got a “Get out of my face” answer to “Excuse me, what should I do now?” after being identified as one of the victims.

Additionally, at the hospital, they kicked me out from the Emergencies area after analysis and asked me to wait on the hospital hallway as if nothing happened. One of my friends intervened and was incredibly told by one of the doctors that sadly we didn’t get harmed enough as we can still talk.

Note: All other police and hospital representatives were truly professional, hence these are isolated, but existing, worrying cases.

8. 3rd September 2018 : Next generation of politicians proves hopeless so far.

  • Mara Mares, the youngest member of Chamber of Deputies and member of the National Liberal Party, praises her party for an airport construction and posts a CGI video on social media, claiming airport completion by 2020.

Note: Somehow, I follow Mara Mares on Facebook, as we both studied at University College London in the same period.

While being reluctant on these statements and quite convinced promises will help them win voters (but same promises won’t be kept), I highlighted in a comment real infrastructure issues our country faces, such as the lack of hospitals, railway or education facilities. The airport would be built in Brasov, a 3-hour drive to Sibiu airport and 4-hour drive to Bucharest airport. I further asked about concrete plans on raising quality of life, reducing level of corruption, raising standards of education and transparency in case of winning future elections.

An initial answer did not touch any points on my questions, only a mention that the airport is built by the local county council, the one year and a half deadline will be met and the project has no financing from the government, but from the National Liberal Party . How could a county council build a private airport (where a county council is qualified as a public sector office), without financing from its main source, The Ministry of Public Finance, a governmental institution ? Sure, there are private investors, but history of private sector contracts with the government revealed significant money laundering schemes and failed projects in Romania.

Example : https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-21/romania-corruption-crackdown-delays-infrastructure-projects

Further questions posted were also completely ignored.

This dialogue really disappointed me and reduced my belief in the future of this country. Same old moral values were applied to my generation’s politicians, where citizens’ problems are ignored by politicians and where personal interests are above societal needs. No need for an academic report on answering my questions, a simple view would have been enough. It feels that this is only the beginning.

Lastly, Romania is soon to blow its 100-year old candles. Citizens of this country are rapidly moving abroad, governmental abuses are happening every day and the politicians biggest concerns are how to keep power, how to meet their personal interests, with no vision on solving real problems the population is facing. My generations’ chances to succeed are shadowed by what is perceived as an increasing income and power gap between the businessmen and politicians and the rest of the country.

You may have noticed none of the points above were quantified, as I initially proposed. Please rate all of the above on a scale of normality from 1 to 10, where 1 is unacceptable and 10 is absolutely normal.

Now, while looking at my life in London, is it worth coming back and living here, in Bucharest, Romania, the country my international friends claim I love so much?

Teodor Popescu

Written by

Software Engineer @ Deutsche Bank. Former basketball player and an aspiring traveller. Learning something new every day.

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