I’ve been following politics in Romania since way back in the year 2000 when Traian Basescu cried on television after accepting his party’s nomination for president. Along the way, I’ve seen some truly stupid and greedy shit, so you’d think there’d be nothing left to surprise me.

Well, yesterday, I discovered that there is apparently a new low in Romanian politics. If you’re just catching up, I recommend this article (in English), which does a decent job of using rational words to describe a completely surreal situation.

I had to watch yesterday as a complete nobody with a ridiculous name, Mihai Fifor, read aloud a motion to censure (link in Romanian – PDF) the prime minister that should be the new definition of “brazen” (Ro: obraznic) in the dictionary. The motion was entitled “Romania Cannot Be Confiscated! We Are Defending Democracy and the Votes of the Romanian People” and it just gets weirder from there.

My translation is below, but keep in mind that the PSD won a parliamentary victory in December 2016 (fair and square). They then nominated a member of their own party (Sorin Grindeanu) to be prime minister. Once he was confirmed, they used a bag of tricks to de-criminalize corruption, and now they’re saying that Grindeanu is the one which is putting democracy at risk.

Here’s the juicy bit from yesterday’s motion:

Demonstrating contempt of the rules that govern a democracy and the functioning of state institutions while indulging in immature and irresponsible politics, the Prime Minister and one of his ministers [Augustin Jianu], instead of respecting the investiture vote and trust given to them by [other members of] the Parliament, have shown that they think that the can rule the country as a personal fiefdom in total violation of the Constitution and the Romanian electorate.

Two of the 27 members of the cabinet, which have voluntarily aligned themselves with a single member of parliament/government official, want to split the cabinet while launching ridiculous attacks in all directions, pushing an unwanted and lunatic caricature of the current government.

Despite their efforts, the only thing that the Ponta-Grindeanu-Jianu “government” have shown is that there are politicians out there who have irrevocably lost all understanding of common sense, honor, and dignity, which proves, once again, the rightness of the leadership of the PSD and ALDE parties to withdraw their support.

Yep, you read that right. The leadership of PSD and ALDE are the ones with “common sense, honor and dignity”. Please.

A basic honest citizen would raise the following questions:

• Did the Ponta-Grindeanu-Jianu “government” legitimately take power on January 4, 2017?
• Can the Ponta-Grindeanu-Jianu “government” pass the legislative agenda approved by the parliament on January 4, 2017?
• Is there parliamentary support (right now) for the Ponta-Grindeanu-Jianu “government”?
• Is the Ponta-Grindeanu-Jianu “government” constitutional?
• Does the Ponta-Grindeanu-Jianu “government” represent the will of the Romanian people as expressed in the December 11, 2016 election?

Obviously, the answer to all of these questions is NO!

Holy moley, guacamole.

You know, I almost feel sorry for the PSD. In the 1990s, they gunned down protestors to ensure that Communism would never die in Romania. They enthusiastically signed the accord to join the EU in 1999, but that backfired in their face when PM Adrian Nastase and other PSD bigwigs were jailed on corruption.

They buddied up with all the elements of the Securitate (secret police – now called the SRI) to crush all investigations into their dirty pasts, but failed (so far) to get the DNA under control. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars on two (failed) referendums to get rid of a president that they didn’t like.

They lied, committed vote fraud, and gutted the Constitution. They conspired with weird evangelical cults and secret American powerbrokers to seize control of the government. They let innocent people freeze to death and burn to cinders through sheer incompetence. They tear gassed shepherds, illegally ignored a 2009 referendum that restricted their power, whitewashed plagiarism, and saw dozens of ministers forced out of office due to corruption, stupidity, and murdering police officers. And now they’re wishing on magical unicorns to pay for the budget increases that they had to approve in order to keep buying votes.

Despite all this, they remain in power almost entirely because all the other parties are too stupid to organize any effective opposition.

The vote on the censure motion will take place on Wednesday. One of two things will happen:

• It’ll pass. This will force President Iohannis to pick a new prime minister, almost certainly NOT one to the PSD’s liking; or
• It won’t pass, in which case the PSD is stuck with a parliamentary majority but a PM that they openly loathe.

Christ, what a colossal clusterfuck.

WELCOME TO ROMANIAN POLITICS, KIDS!