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P 260843Z FEB 10
FM AMEMBASSY BUCHAREST
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0349
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BUCHAREST 000104 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE EUR/CE FOR ASCHEIBE AND EUR/OHI CKENNEDY 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/25/2020 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM RO
SUBJECT: ROMANIA'S FAR RIGHT: DOWN, BUT NOT DEAD 
 
Classified By: DCM JERI GUTHRIE-CORN FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) and (D) 
 
 
INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 
 
¶1.  (C) In separate interviews, Romanian political analysts, 
government officials and former supporters of the far right 
largely dismissed Romania's ultra-nationalist movement as 
politically irrelevant.  The far right is divided between the 
Greater Romanian Party (PRM) and New Generation Party (PNG), 
with the shadowy Noua Dreapta (New Right) group largely 
operating underground and on the Internet.  The movement's 
electoral decline is a result of internal divisions, 
ineffective, aged leaders unwilling to groom younger 
protgs, the lack of a unifying threat as a rally point, the 
absorption of many supporters by the mainstream center-right, 
and a younger generation more focused on materialism than on 
nationalism or ideology. 
 
ELECTORAL MALAISE 
 
¶2.  (C) In the November 2009 presidential elections, the two 
far-right candidates, Vadim Tudor (PRM) and Gigi Becali 
(PNG), failed to  capitalize on discontent generated by the 
economic recession and the widely-held view that mainstream 
Romanian politicians are corrupt, cynical and ineffective. 
Tudor won only 5.5 percent of the popular vote, down from 
12.6 percent in the 2004 presidential elections and far off 
his peak of 28.3 percent in the second round of the 2000 
contest.  Becali's 1.9 percent showing was disappointing (to 
him) in light of his June 2009 election to the European 
Parliament (EP) on a joint slate with PRM that garnered 8.6 
percent of the vote.  According to William Branza, a Liberal 
Democrat (PDL) member of Parliament who defected from PRM, 
Becali's June performance was due mainly to voter sympathy 
following his arrest and imprisonment in connection with a 
kidnapping scheme. 
 
UNSTABLE, INEFFECTIVE AND AUTOCRATIC LEADERS 
 
¶3.  (C)  One historian who studies the far right believes 
many Romanian ultra-nationalists view Tudor and Becali 
increasingly as liabilities.  Tudor is suffering from 
worsening diabetes and younger ultra-conservatives consider 
him a clown.  A former close friend and aide to Becali 
described the PNG leader as an intelligent but 
unsophisticated man who rejects advice and bullies his 
advisors to the point that no one can stand working for him 
for long.  Neither Tudor nor Becali has been effective in 
building alliances with other mainstream parties, and neither 
has chosen to groom younger leaders as their successors. 
Branza, the PRM defector, holds Tudor and Becali responsible 
for the right wing's poor performance in the November 
presidential elections. 
 
¶4.  (C) Morale problems may be percolating downward.  "Good, 
young people remain in the PRM, and they are frustrated by 
the lack of upward mobility in the party," Branza told us. 
PRM-affiliated newspapers have declined in circulation; local 
PRM branches that used to buy bulk copies of Tudor's papers 
to distribute among their faithful can now barely pay their 
electric bills.  As a result, publication is dependent upon a 
few loyal businessmen.  The PNG, meanwhile, is dependent on 
the fortunes of Becali and his nationally-known soccer team - 
the source of much of his appeal. 
 
NO UNIFYING THREAT 
 
¶5.  (C) Romanian ultra-nationalists currently lack a unifying 
ethnic enemy as a catalyst.  Romania's Roma community remains 
politically and economically weak. Attempts to scapegoat 
ethnic Hungarians are falling on deaf ears, as most Romanians 
recognize that the economic competition with the ethnic 
Hungarians is no longer relevant with both Romania and 
Hungary in the EU and Romanians able to work abroad. 
Mainstream discrimination against Romania's tiny Jewish 
community -- and larger Arab student and immigrant community 
-- remain relatively limited.  Our interlocutors thought that 
corruption was the most likely target for ultranationalist 
ire.  Vadim Tudor's daily tabloid Tricolor has taken this 
approach, regularly ranting against the behavior of Romania's 
political class. 
 
FORMER RIGHT-WINGERS JUMP TO MAINSTREAM PARTIES 
 
¶6.  (C) Meanwhile mainstream parties are courting far-right 
voters and disaffected politicians.  Last year, Social 
Democratic Party (PSD) presidential candidate Mircea Geoana 
appeared with Tudor on the campaign trail and publicly 
praised him.  Tudor reportedly told his supporters to vote 
for Geoana in the second round of the 2009 Presidential race, 
 
BUCHAREST 00000104  002 OF 002 
 
 
but most PRM supporters voted for incumbent President Basescu 
because he was perceived as more nationalistic, another 
observer of the far-right explained.  Basescu covets these 
votes;  in October, while he presided over the historic 
dedication of the Bucharest Holocaust Memorial, Basescu 
judged it politically expedient to delay installing a plaque 
explicitly expressing state complicity in the Holocaust 
(complicity he acknowledged openly at the dedication) until 
the day after the Presidential runoff. 
 
¶7.  (C) Conversely, some politicians use the PRM as a vehicle 
to forward their political ambitions.  Branza, for example, 
entered Parliament with the PRM and then switched to the 
larger, more influential center-right Liberal Democrats (PDL) 
because, he intimated, he wanted to join a winner.  By our 
estimates, approximately ten current PDL and National Liberal 
(PNL) members of Parliament were at one time associated with 
the PRM or far-right movements.  The mainstream parties, in 
need of numbers, usually welcome the defectors with open 
arms. 
 
YOUTH LESS VULNERABLE TO ULTRA-NATIONALISM 
 
¶8.  (C) With Internet penetration and EU membership 
established facets of Romanian life, most Romanian youth are 
too individualistic and career-oriented to fall under the 
influence of ultra-nationalist leaders, the history professor 
surmised.  An exception may be members of the New Right, who, 
while circumspect in their public activities, are known to 
use the Internet to seek recruits.  All of our interlocutors 
agreed that youthful recruits were more likely to come from 
urban areas than rural locales, where family and social 
networks are stronger.  Young members were not limited to 
those who suffered after the transition to democracy -- in 
fact, most of them have no recollection of life under 
communism.  Statistics are sketchy at best, and no one can 
offer an educated guess of the number of far-right 
sympathizers in Romania. 
 
COMMENT 
 
¶9.  (C) Although the decline of the far right is a welcome 
development, it is premature to sound the death knell. 
Romanian society is still plagued by widespread 
discrimination against Roma and less-frequent slurs against 
ethnic Hungarians and Jews. Nevertheless, short of the 
emergence of a still-unknown demagogue, we do not foresee the 
far right rejuvenating in the near future.  For now, the best 
opportunity for the far right to win more adherents is to 
capitalize on Romanians' widespread disdain with their 
corrupt political class -- but even that may result in 
disaffected voters merely staying home instead of throwing 
their support to the PRM or PNG. 
GITENSTEIN