Party platforms
2016 has been a year of complex referendums, of many national elections and of severe changes in the international and national political arenas. In a few days, Romanians will go out to vote their next Parliament in an environment of popular distrust, corruption scandals, and gridlock of processes and institutions.
This Strategikon project looks at the political platforms of the four main parties, PSD (Social Democrats), PNL (National Liberals), USR (Save Romania Union), ALDE (Liberal Democrats). We discovered a lack of cohesiveness on the main issues affecting or poised to affect Romania for the next four years. These four main political parties understand that the economy needs to grow, the administration needs to be streamlined, more money is needed for education, health, and social benefits. And the consensus generally ends here, as each party identifies its own set of causes and frames its own solutions.
The intricacies of the budget, central and local administration, corruption, bureaucracy, investments, policies, all make leading a country a tricky business. Nonetheless, parties and politicians need to set aside ideologies and engage in a coherent dialogue to decide what are Romania’s main problems. In a democracy, each party will envision the country, the role of the state and the path forward based on its own perception of the world but ideology is the coloring in a drawing book, it gives expression and feeling to a framework already decided upon. This analysis shows that Romania needs a two-tier dialogue: between grassroots and the establishment, and between those in the establishment.
Editorial note: data was compiled from the parties’ documents, leader’s press statements, but no governing program. We tried to be as thorough as possible while also streamlining the information into easy-to-read documents. We invited the parties to add any information they feel we have missed.
To this date, no answer was received.
