Political trend: electoral charity

The Easter Week turned into an electoral campaign opportunity. Romanians – once again discovered as voting mob – were overwhelmed this week with gifts and charity offers from politicians. Impossible to be found until now, political leaders stepped down in the crowd and suffocated the people with their social responsibility projects. Pensioners fought for cakes and sausages, trampled each other for edible oil and sugar, some lucky ones even got to travel over the border for Easter shopping. Others were promised cars and trips.

The start came from the football and real estate controversial mogul, Gigi Becali, head of the New Generation Party (PNG): over 100 pensioners came early in the morning and stood in line for 30 eggs, 2 pounds of sugar, some oil and a piece of pound cake. For party members only: those who were not PNG members were offered the possibility to join on the spot.

The past few weeks were quite busy in Bucharest. Mayors did in less than a month a lot of things they failed to do during an entire mandate. Health care centers were opened, pedestrian passages came into use, illegal kiosks were torn down and trees were planted.

Liberal head of the Brasov County, Aristotel Cancescu, offered free trips with a vintage luxury train, called Dracula Express. Also in Brasov, Liberal – Democrat mayor George Scripcaru gave away gardening tools for a hundred blocks of flats, „champions of the spring cleansing”.

In Craiova, mayor Antonie Solomon and his challenger, Ion Groza, organize on-the-spot lotteries. Antonie Solomon offers a car, while Groza printed 150,000 tombola tickets for a Peugeot 107. The ones who fill in their names must answer to the question „Who is the Liberal candidate for the City Hall” and mention one of the city’s main problems.

The law punishes electoral bribe with six months to five years in jail. According to the law, the only promotional issues that may be offered are posters, flyers, buckets, t-shirts and baseball hats.