Abstract
Built on concurrent claims of legitimacy, the semi-presidential constitutional framework is prone to conflicts between the office holders. Cohabitation is a particular instance in which the president’s party is not represented in government and he has to share executive power with a prime minister. Instead of producing a flexible dual-authority structure within the executive, cohabitation has always tended to generate institutional crises in Romania, ending with the impeachment of the president (2007 and 2012). This article identifies a combination of four factors leading to this outcome: legislative ambiguity, the composition of the legislature, the absence of external pressures, and the leaders’ personality.
The semi-presidential system initially proposed by Duverger was essentially meant as a third way to the presidential and parliamentary systems. 1 It was thought to remedy their inadequacies by emphasizing a somewhat different principle. This principle involves the equilibrium between three institutions: the president, the Cabinet (run by the prime minister), and Parliament. Such a particular setting presupposes the existence of a dual executive in which a popularly elected head of state has considerable executive authority to be shared with the prime minister. 2 Accordingly, semi-presidential systems are prone to conflicts between these two figures representing the executive. 3 With different sources of legitimacy—popular support for the president and the legislators’ confidence in the prime minister—both actors can claim more power and destabilize the equilibrium. Empirical evidence points to a few institutional and behavioral sources of conflict: leader personalities, party system configuration, parliamentary composition, ideological differences, or constitutional ambiguities. 4
A particular instance of this conflict occurs when the president and the prime minister belong to different political parties and the president’s party is not represented in government—a situation known as cohabitation. 5 In other words, the prime minister enjoys the confidence of a Parliament hostile to the president. 6 Cohabitation is considered to bear increased risks in less consolidated political systems. 7 As with other intra-executive conflicts, the major problem is represented by the emergence of a deadlock situation. 8 The impasse can come to an end when either of the two actors seizes power or when external actors come into play (e.g., the military). 9 Both instances can affect the functioning of democracy. This is why most empirical research focuses on the general relationship between cohabitation and the persistence of democracy. The results are equivocal. On the one hand, several studies have illustrated the negative consequences of cohabitation on democracy. 10 On the other hand, there is evidence that in practice, cohabitation does not create great problems in the new democracies. 11 Less attention has been dedicated to the consequences of cohabitation on the components of the political system. In particular, it is unclear if there is a link between cohabitation and political or constitutional crises.
Pierce argues that in France cohabitation did not produce crises in spite of severe strains between the president and the prime minister. 12 Romania is a particular case that presents different evidence. By July 2012, after more than two decades of post-Communist politics, there had been approximately thirty months of cohabitation: April 2007–November 2008 and March 2012–present. However, two institutional crises occurred during this period, culminating with the impeachment of one and the same president by the legislature. Instead of producing a flexible dual-authority structure within the executive, 13 cohabitation generated an unbalanced situation. Using a qualitative approach, this article identifies the conditions under which cohabitation led to presidential impeachment in Romania in 2007 and 2012. These events are of theoretical and empirical importance as they are representative for the new European democracies. These are the only instances in which institutional conflicts coincide solely with cohabitation.
Along similar lines, its uniqueness among the Central and Eastern European countries increases the relevance of this single case. Romania is the only post-Communist country where the (same) president remained in office after two attempts at impeachment. The analysis of particular sources of conflict may reveal important factors to be avoided by countries facing similar institutional threats. Our narratives indicate the existence of two interdependent sets of factors leading to this outcome: institutional design (constitutional ambiguity regarding the functions of state institutions, the composition of the legislature, and the absence of external pressures) and behaviors (personality traits). As none of these determinants is country specific, the empirical implications of this study are quite straightforward.
The first section presents the theoretical and conceptual framework of this study. Next, we briefly discuss the research design of this paper. The third section systematically investigates the two major political crises in post-Communist Romania (April–May 2007 and July–August 2012). Finally, the conclusions summarize the key findings, elaborate on the limits and merits of such an approach, and identify directions for further research.
The Romanian Institutional System and Its Crises
In a semi-presidential regime, both the legislature and the president are directly elected, thus sharing the popular source of legitimacy. At the same time, the prime minister and his Cabinet are responsible to Parliament. Accordingly, when the president does not enjoy majority support in the legislature and his party is not in government (cohabitation), there is a high likelihood of institutional conflict. This is usually encountered when either the president or the prime minister enjoying the legislature’s support fails to recognize the claim to executive authority. 14 Conflicts are generally inherent in semi-presidential systems even during the most favorable political circumstances. Such conflicts can take many forms, from policy issues—mainly residing in the ideological differences between the two executive figures—to broader issues related to the political system. In this paper, a greater conflict with a potential impact on the entire political system is called a crisis. In particular, an institutional conflict has deeper roots and, usually, medium- to long-term consequences for the functioning of democracy.
Institutional conflicts can occur either between the two executive figures or between one of them (the president or the prime minister) and the legislature. Two specific situations are straightforward. First, a conflict between the prime minister and Parliament usually ends in a vote of no confidence, the removal of the former, and the formation of a new Cabinet. Second, the cases of divided minority governments—when neither the president nor the prime minister enjoys a majority in the legislature—are supplementary sources of conflicts. Quite often, the stability of the party system explains the occurrence of this situation. What is harder to explain is the emergence of an institutional conflict in settings characterized by a stable party system and the absence of divided minority governments, that is, the case of Romania. The features of the Romanian institutional and political system indicate that crises can also emerge in settings characterized by functioning checks and balances and by stable patterns of competition and cooperation between political parties.
The Context of Institutional Conflicts
The main argument of this paper is that the institutional setting and the elite’s behavior led to conflicts between the state institutions in Romania. However, these determinants have to be seen in the light of the political developments occurring since the regime change. Following the 1989 breakdown of communism, Romania began a long and tedious democratization process. In spite of major institutional changes, behaviors and attitudes remained embedded in the logic of the previous regime. Thus, although many political discussions before the first free elections envisaged a central role for Parliament among the state authorities, the (re)emerging political elites and the citizens have pursued a parallel quest for a strong president. The triumphant election of Ion Iliescu—with more than 80 percent of the votes—in May 1990 encapsulated popular expectations for messianic solutions and (semi)authoritative management.
Benefiting from strong popular legitimacy, Iliescu tempered the reforms but became increasingly unable to resolve short- and middle-term social and economic difficulties. The latter led to increased popular discontent, and the necessity to find scapegoats was rapidly felt by the president. Accordingly, the 1991 Constitution was drafted—by one of Iliescu’s reliable party colleagues—to allow the president to maintain executive power but also to hold the Prime Minister accountable for the government’s failures. This happened during many terms in office, with various presidents and Prime Ministers: Iliescu versus Petre Roman (1990–1991), Emil Constantinescu versus Victor Ciorbea (1996–1997) or Radu Vasile (1998–1999), and Traian Basescu versus Calin Popescu-Tariceanu (2005–2008).
None of the alternations in government (i.e., 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012) brought any change to the nature of these relationships. Over time, the presidents continued to blame their Prime Ministers; in their turn, the Prime Ministers became increasingly vocal and made efforts to annihilate the presidents’ plans. With the exception of the Iliescu–Roman clash, whenever the two holders of executive power belonged to the same political party, many issues were kept internal and only a few conflict-related elements got on the public agenda. This often prevented the escalation of conflicts and the emergence of a crisis. Thus, the political membership of the two executive actors is partly connected to the effects produced by the institutional design. To get a clearer picture on the Romanian post-Communist developments, the following two subsections discuss the formal separation of powers and briefly introduce the key political parties.
The Separation of Powers
According to its 2003 Constitution, which amended the 1991 Constitution only marginally, Romania is a Republic where both the president and Parliament (the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, with roughly equal powers) are popularly and directly elected. The approximately 340 Deputies and 140 Senators (numbers vary across elections) have a four-year term in office, while the president is elected, as of 2004, for a five-year term. Before then, legislative and presidential elections were simultaneously held and this explains the absence of cohabitation during the first fifteen years after the breakdown of communism. Whereas Parliament is the “supreme representative body of the people” (Art. 61-1), the president “is the representative of the Romanian State and the guardian of its national independence, unity, and territorial integrity” (Art. 80-1). Although not being explicitly a part of the executive power but rather a guardian of the balance of powers, the president has a few executive attributions: he (1) calls for a national referendum following a consultation with Parliament; (2) leads the foreign and security policy; (3) chairs the Supreme Council for National Defense (CSAT), an institution responsible for the major strategies in this field (Art. 92); (4) takes part in the Cabinet sessions when matters related to national security or foreign policy are debated and in all other sessions if invited by the prime minister; (5) if present, he presides over the executive sessions (Art. 87); and (6) is involved in the nomination of some key officials, such as the General Prosecutor.
The prime minister is the head of government, being nominated by the president and appointed by the legislature with a vote of confidence (a simple majority). The president appoints a prime minister proposed by the party enjoying absolute majority in Parliament. If no party fulfills this criterion, there is no constitutional obligation for the president to nominate a prime minister proposed by a coalition that has a virtual majority. Thus, after consulting the parties represented in Parliament, the president appoints a prime minister who is responsible for his government’s formation and for obtaining a vote of confidence in Parliament (Art. 102). The prime minister may be dismissed only by Parliament with a vote of no confidence, while the president does not have a say in this (Art. 107-2). To avoid an institutional deadlock, the Constitution stipulates punishments for the failure of the legislature to appoint a prime minister. Accordingly, the president can dissolve Parliament when the latter rejects two proposed governmental teams within sixty days and only once over the course of one year (Art. 89).
To counterbalance this presidential power, the legislature can impeach the president. This procedure presupposes four steps and also involves the Constitutional Court. This is a judicial body composed of nine judges, three of which are appointed by the Chamber of Deputies, three by the Senate, and three by the president. Their term in office lasts nine years and every three years, three of the members step down. The first stage of the impeachment process is the initiative of at least one-third of the members of parliament (MPs) to suspend the president. Second, the Constitutional Court provides a consultative opinion, and third, the absolute majority of the MPs cast a vote in favor of impeachment for a “severe violation of the constitutional provisions” (Art. 95). Finally, the president is dismissed if the majority of the Romanian citizens approve of this decision in a popular referendum held within thirty days. Until a decision is reached, the Senate Speaker becomes the interim head of state and enjoys virtually all the presidential prerogatives.
The Political Parties
Since Parliament is a crucial component of this institutional arrangement, the political parties are important. The Romanian parliamentary arena has included the same political actors for more than a decade as no new political party has won seats since 2000. The largest political party is the Social Democratic Party (PSD): a successor of the former communists, it has won five out of six legislative elections after 1990 and governed (alone or in coalitions) five times (three times for a full term in office). It won three presidential elections (1990, 1992, and 2000) and its average electoral support is around 35 percent. The Democratic Liberal Party (PDL) is the second largest party, which gradually increased its share of votes from less than 10 percent in the 1990s to more than 30 percent in the 2008 elections. The party was in government three times (never for a full term in office) and its candidate Traian Basescu won the presidential elections in 2004 and 2009. The National Liberal Party (PNL) took part in three government coalitions and followed a similar trend to that of the PDL in increasing the percentage of its supporters. Its leader was prime minister between 2004 and 2008, when the first institutional conflict with the president occurred. The Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) is an ethnic party with a very stable electoral support (approximately 7 percent) and has joined almost every coalition government since 1996; it is a pivotal party.
The Conservative Party (PC) is a small political party that has always won parliamentary seats by competing in electoral alliances with the PSD. It has participated in three coalition governments but not always with the PSD. Finally, the Greater Romania Party (PRM) is an extremist actor, with an antisystem discourse. It is the only party that gradually lost its electoral support and failed to win parliamentary seats in the 2008 elections. It is also the only party constantly excluded from government. Summing up, for more than a decade, the Romanian party system has had a relatively stable composition. At the same time, ideology does not appear to impede cooperation, since almost every parliamentary party has joined a coalition government with every other party in Parliament.
Institutional Crises
Romania witnessed two institutional conflicts between the president and the opposing Parliament and government. The first (2007) emerged after a split in the Truth and Justice Alliance, DA (PNL+PDL), which had won the 2004 elections. Although the PSD won the legislative elections, the president (Basescu) appointed the PNL leader, Calin Popescu-Tariceanu, as prime minister and the DA Alliance secured a minimal majority in the legislature with the help of the UDMR and the PC. By the beginning of 2006, a series of tensions related to the nominations of public officials, the prosecution of certain businessmen, and especially, the political strategy (e.g., Tariceanu refused to resign and have early elections be organized, which might have led to the DA winning the absolute majority) resulted in an increasingly problematic relation between the PNL and the PDL and between the prime minister and the president. A faction of the PNL left the party with a group of twenty-two former Liberal MPs and joined the PDL. At the same time, there was an increasing rapprochement between the new leadership of the PSD and the PNL; the latter relied less and less on their official PDL allies. The rupture took place in April 2007, when the PDL ministers were dismissed by Tariceanu and replaced with Liberals. This resulted in the investment of a minority government, the PNL and the UDMR, which benefited from a silent agreement with the PSD.
The new parliamentary majority (including the PSD) impeached the president for allegedly unconstitutional conduct. This happened although the Constitutional Court provided a general negative opinion on this impeachment procedure. The vote in Parliament (322 MPs voted for impeachment) was driven by several accusations against the president: the absence of political equidistance towards the political parties, his abuse of power and active involvement instead of playing a mediation role (as stipulated by the Constitution), his infringement of the powers of the state institutions (the legislature and the cabinet), and his manipulation and instigation of public opinion against the state institutions. The popular referendum organized to approve the parliamentary vote was held under different conditions than the previous referenda. The minimum turnout threshold of 50 percent was no longer a requirement to validate the result. In spite of this modification, three quarters of the voters were against impeachment and thus the president regained full prerogatives at the end of May.
The second institutional crisis took place in 2012, at the beginning of another cohabitation period. Following the 2008 parliamentary elections, Basescu, using a discourse related to the world economic crisis, called for the formation of a great coalition between the PDL and the PSD (together they had won more than two-thirds of the seats). This coalition lasted until October 2009 when the PSD left the coalition. Two months later, Basescu was reelected as president by a very small margin (less than 1 percent of the voters) and shaped a legislative majority for his party (PDL) with the help of the UDMR and using thirty-five defector MPs from the PSD and the PNL. Following severe economic reforms (e.g., cutting the public servants’ wages by 25 percent), the PDL government became increasingly unpopular and lost a vote of no confidence in April 2012. This was also possible given the emergence of an electoral alliance between the PSD, the PNL, and the PC: the Social-Liberal Union (USL). Following the vote of no confidence, the PSD president (Victor Ponta) was nominated as prime minister.
The new government coalition undertook radical measures. First, it revoked, in a single day, the PDL chairs of the two Chambers and the Ombudsman. The latter was the sole official who could notify the Constitutional Court about the abuses committed by the public authorities. The government passed an emergency decree that withdrew the jurisdiction of the Constitutional Court over the decisions of Parliament. Basescu’s reaction was also quick: he denounced the presumptive coup d’état and pretended that the main objective of the “plotters” was to get control over the entire judicial system. In his view, such gestures were intended to prevent the conviction of some politicians (such as the former prime minister Adrian Nastase) and of some business and media tycoons. In July, Parliament was convened to impeach the president for violations of the Constitution. The main charges brought by the USL MPs were quite similar to the ones in 2007: meddling in government affairs and encroaching upon the prime minister’s activities, violating the fundamental rights and freedoms of the citizens, infringing the principles of judicial independence and the separation of powers; violating the principles of representative democracy; initiating an unconstitutional project to revise the Constitution; exerting direct pressures on the judges of the Constitutional Court; and abandoning his mediation role in the state and society.
This time the Constitutional Court did not give an overall negative opinion on the bill as a whole but addressed each of the eight charges individually. It found that only one was well grounded: the president had indeed not acted as a mediator between the state institutions. Parliament voted in favor of Basescu’s suspension (256 to 114) and a referendum was scheduled for the end of July. Following this vote, the government passed an emergency decree in which the minimum presence threshold (50 percent + 1 of the total number of voters) was no longer necessary to validate the referendum. Unlike in 2007, the Constitutional Court rejected this decree and stated that the old referendum law should be applied. The referendum could not be validated because only 46 percent of the voters had cast their ballots and thus, once again, the president regained his prerogatives. To sum up, both crises involved the same political actors and had similar developments and outcomes. We intend to explain the occurrence of these crises through a series of factors: legislative ambiguity, changes in the parliamentary majority, external pressures, and the leaders’ personalities.
Legislative Ambiguity
The formal authority relations in semi-presidential systems are much more complex and less straightforward than in the presidential or parliamentary types of institutional design. 15 A democratic system is a long and indirect chain of delegation in which the citizen is the ultimate principal. In a parliamentary system, the members of the legislatures and their political parties are the primary accountable agents. In their turn, the legislators vest confidence in a government that is fully accountable to them. 16 In a semi-presidential system, this chain runs in parallel with the one generated by the direct election of the president. The latter becomes a primary agent of representation that has to share executive power with the prime minister, who is both its agent (when the president appoints the prime minister) and the agent of an institution with the same popular source of legitimacy (Parliament). Accordingly, in an environment of competing political legitimacies, the hierarchical relations among the president, the prime minister, and Parliament are crucial.
In the absence of clear responsibilities and accountability patterns—to regulate the interactions between these institutions—constitutions cannot engender the stability and predictability of a democratic regime. 17 On the contrary, ambiguity is likely to generate institutional conflicts. The Eastern European constitutions are known for their loose provisions allowing presidents and prime ministers to fight over influence. Within the executive, the distribution of authority is ambiguous and fluid, with Constitutions providing only broad frameworks for the exercise of power. 18 The background against which these Constitutions were drafted explains their broad and vague character. Most of them emerged in the aftermath of the first free elections, on barren soil, as most institutions were being replaced. In the absence of multi-party competition and representation for almost half a century and given the lack of democratic experience even during the inter-war period, prior to communism, the outcome was a situation in which the first post-Communist power holders were eager to define their prerogatives as broadly as possible. 19 The ambiguous functions of these institutions can lead to situations where the actors’ expectations and ambitions collide. Empirical evidence reveals a few instances in which the conflicts that emerged between presidents and prime ministers had constitutional roots in Eastern Europe. 20
As the post-Communist Constitutions were rarely revised in a substantial manner, 21 their initial provisions remained in place and problems have persisted throughout the years. More importantly, a close look at some of these constitutions indicates that ambiguity is not limited to the interaction between the president and the prime minister but characterizes the relationship between the executive, the legislative, and even the judicial branches. In particular, the Romanian case unveils a problematic situation in which institutional responsibilities are not clearly defined; this setting is conducive to institutional conflicts. 22
In the Romanian case, one major problem of the constitutional provisions is the absence of clear delineations between the responsibilities of various state institutions in general and of the two representatives of the executive in particular. Regarding the latter, there are at least three major cases of overlapping powers and responsibilities between the president and the government. First, there is an overlap in matters of national security. The president chairs the top security body, the CSAT, which includes a series of officials close to the president (the heads of the secret services, the presidential advisers) and members of the Cabinet (the prime minister, particular ministers). The latter is expected to implement the CSAT’s decisions but also has the ultimate authority and responsibility to ensure national security and the current management of all the related matters, as it embodies the executive and administrative power. This ambiguity has allowed for a different behavior in practice. In 1996, the Presidency constituted a security “cell” and imposed decisions upon the government through the CSAT, while the implementation process was often temporized by the government and, on some occasions, the strategy content was altered. For instance, in June 2006, Prime Minister Tariceanu publicly announced the decision to withdraw the Romanian troops stationed in Afghanistan. His intention was heavily criticized by President Basescu and was not adopted within the CSAT. The government had to comply with the CSAT’s decision.
Second, there is an overlap between the president and the government in judicial affairs. The crucial element here is the nomination of prosecutors, especially of the General Prosecutor and of the Anti-Corruption Chief Prosecutor; both are the responsibility of the president, following the proposal submitted by the Minister of Justice and the consultative opinion of the Superior Council of the Magistracy. It is unclear how far the president can go with these nominations. In theory, this may range from a quasi-symbolic act to a situation in which the president may reject all the nominations that he considers inappropriate. In practice, each nomination has been preceded by harsh negotiations and sometimes by clashes between the presidency and the government, and the prosecutors have long been considered as the “president’s men.” Although in charge of law enforcement through the Ministry of Justice, the government has no control over prosecutors but may interfere in their activities through the way it controls the police force and allocates the public budgets.
Third, there is also some overlap between the president and the prime minister with respect to the country’s participation in the European Council Meetings. In 2006 and in 2007, President Basescu and Prime Minister Tariceanu vied twice for the position of Romania’s official representative in the European Council. In December 2006, they travelled by separate planes to Brussels, and in April 2007 they had different strategies and agendas. In 2012, the same president and Prime Minister Ponta claimed the right to represent Romania at the European Council held at the end of June 2012. Following these episodes of double representation, the Constitutional Court decided in June 2012 that the President is the official entitled to represent Romania in matters of foreign relations, including in the European Council. At the same time, the government holds the power to put into practice the decisions reached by the European Council.
These overlaps and the existence of legislative ambiguities regarding prerogatives played a relevant role in the 2007 and 2012 institutional crises. In both impeachment procedures, the president was accused of infringing upon the government’s powers and becoming increasingly active in political decision making. Furthermore, in 2012 the president was also accused of putting pressure on the Constitutional Court judges. As one-third of the Court is appointed by the president and a few other judges were appointed when the president’s party held the majority in Parliament, such pressures are imminent. In the absence of exclusive areas of responsibility, the three general situations discussed above illustrate how infringement is entrenched in the legislative provisions. Cohabitation triggers certain mechanisms that are less likely to occur when the two representatives of the executive belong to the same political camp (party or coalition). As regards the latter, the post-Communist history of the country has been dominated by cooperation relationships between the president and the prime minister. When cohabitation starts, executive power is divided between the opposing camps, and the president may try to make effective use of his powers. At the same time, even if the president changes nothing in his use of prerogatives, the dispute is carried out in terms of perceptions and one and the same gesture may be interpreted differently. What the president calls the full use of his powers the government may label as an infringement of its own powers. The emergence of the conflict at the beginning of the two cohabitation periods, in 2007 and 2012, can be considered as illustrative for either (or both) of these mechanisms.
Changing Majorities
A second source of institutional conflict is the change of the parliamentary majority during a legislative term. The definition of cohabitation includes implicit references to the composition of Parliament. The number of parties represented in Parliament and their size (i.e., number of seats) give the parliamentary majority; in order to generate cohabitation, this has to oppose the president (and support the prime minister). Within the framework of a democratic political system, a parliamentary majority hostile to the president can emerge either during or between elections. Two scenarios are possible during elections: (1) simultaneous presidential and legislative elections may generate different outcomes and (2) presidential and legislative elections organized at different moments in time may return candidates from opposing camps. In the case of the first scenario, the “different outcome” does not refer to the winner of the legislative elections, but to the composition of the parliamentary majority. In that respect, the president’s party can win the legislative elections but still end up in the opposition. Between elections, cohabitation can occur only as a result of the collapse of the majority during a parliamentary term. Such a change may be determined by two processes: (1) a structural change in the composition of Parliament (e.g., the modification of the number of parties through splits, mergers, or alliances) and (2) an alteration of party size as an effect of floor-crossing (MPs switching parties). From a legitimacy perspective, factors external to changes brought about by elections are more conducive to conflicts as majorities are artificial, not derived from the voters’ preferences. Instead, they are constructs serving specific purposes (i.e., the government, opposing the president, etc.).
Evidence from the Western European countries indicates that conflicts of cohabitation arise in the presence of two clearly distinguishable political camps. 23 The candidate of a major party has less chances of getting support from a parliamentary majority formed by the opposing parties. Although it has more than two camps, Romania follows this pattern as it displays clear patterns of competition, distinguishable political camps, and continuity with respect to the composition of the legislature. Modifications occurring within the few and rather stable parliamentary parties can destabilize an institutional setting. Summing up, a change of the majority in the legislature can have a negative effect on the relationships between institutions. In 2007, the structure of the parliamentary majority was altered and President Basescu’s PDL was sent into opposition. This allowed the PNL leaders to proceed with the impeachment of President Basescu. This intention was also fueled by the actions of the PC, which had left the government coalition at the end of 2006. Its leader, Senator Dan Voiculescu, owns a large media group that launched a daily anti-Basescu campaign, calling for his impeachment. In February 2007, Parliament created an investigation committee, chaired by Voiculescu, which delivered a report at the end of March. According to the report, the president had violated the Constitution and was “involved in criminal activities.”
In 2012 the change of the parliamentary majority was even more radical. Following the vote of no confidence received by the PDL Cabinet, the three opposition parties (the PNL in opposition since 2008, the PSD and the PC since 2009) formed the new coalition government. Their priorities involved changes in the state institutions with the declared goal of reducing impediments to reform. Part of these changes consisted in the replacement of the PDL Senate Speaker with the PNL leader, Crin Anonescu. Relying on increased electoral support (they won the local elections in June 2012), the three parties pursued the impeachment of the president, hoping for a positive result at the referendum. Following the vote in Parliament, the president was suspended and Antonescu became the president of the Senate. Together with the PSD prime minister, he actively campaigned for impeachment before the referendum, thus breaking the constitutional provision of neutrality. The involvement of the legislature in the institutional conflict was thus more pronounced in 2012 compared to 2007.
The 2012 events provide one example in which legislative ambiguity together with the new majority in Parliament contributed to the crisis. When the Constitutional Court was called to acknowledge the failure of the referendum, the government delayed Basescu’s return to office. The Minister of Internal Affairs denied the validity of the electoral lists for the referendum and the Constitutional Court asked the government to present valid electoral lists. The government started several operations—a “mini-census,” a “cleaning,” and a “refreshment”—of the electoral lists. One of the most disputed aspects was the number of Romanians living abroad and their inclusion in the permanent electoral lists; if not included and if overestimated, they could have lowered the number of the registered voters retroactively taken into consideration, ensuring in this way the validation of the referendum. In a contested set of “errata” (unknown to three of the Constitutional Court judges), the Court emphasized that it had asked for the total number of voters and not for other figures or lists. The referendum was eventually declared invalid and the president regained his position three weeks later than under normal circumstances.
External Pressures
The absence of external pressures is likely to contribute to institutional conflict in new democracies. An extensive body of literature has shown the beneficial effects of EU membership, mainly through its conditionality policy, on the democratization process in Eastern Europe. 24 The EU has acted as a major external factor in shaping the degree and speed of democratization. In the process of regime change, it induced post-Communist states to adopt their liberal norms and values of appropriate international and domestic conduct. 25 Conditional accession offered these countries EU membership on condition that they adhered to the EU norms and rules. In that respect, the prospect of EU integration provided many Eastern European countries with the impetus to break away from old political structures and to embark on multifarious reforms. The impact of changes was visible on both public policies and national institutions. What happens when the EU pressures are gone? Once countries become Member States, they do not have to comply with further requirements. The EU can no longer be an obstacle against the emergence of severe institutional conflicts (i.e., crises) and national political leaders do not have to explain their behavior.
Romania’s successful accession to the European Union allowed for the political battle between Basescu and his party and Prime Minister Tariceanu and the PNL plus the PSD to go public. Before 1 January 2007, the tense situation had been kept under control in order to prevent scandals that might have jeopardized Romania’s immediate accession. A close look at the history of conflicting discourses indicates that the phase of a direct inter-institutional war started immediately after accession. While pre-accession conditionality appears to have been an impediment to institutional crisis, post-accession relaxation allowed it.
In 2012, impeachment was also possible because the USL leaders had the impression that the Western countries’ interest in pursuing the monitoring of the Romanian affairs had sensibly decreased. Being more concerned with the periodical outbreak of economic crises, in particular with the crisis of sovereign debts, the EU and the United States were allegedly less inclined to watch and to criticize the domestic developments taking place in various European countries. The Hungarian example showed that after having diplomatically expressed some concerns, the Western leaders almost forgot the much denounced authoritative conduct of the Orban government. Moreover, both the Liberals and the Social Democrats were members of their European political families and, if necessary, they thought they could convince their Western counterparts that democracy was not in danger in Romania. Moreover, supportive reactions like the one of the Bulgarian Socialist Party comforted the USL leaders in their optimistic approach.
The Leaders’ Personalities
Earlier studies in political psychology argue that the personality of political officials can influence their relationships. The personality contrasts between the Romanian president and prime ministers can partially explain the emergence of conflicts. We focus on two dimensions—the need for control and involvement in the policy-making process and the sensitivity to context 26 —and illustrate how different the leaders were on the eve of institutional conflicts. In 2007, President Basescu reached the apogee of popular support. His incandescent personality and combative attitude ensured his electoral success in the 2000 local elections (Mayor of Bucharest) and in the 2004 presidential elections. Sharing the profile of a “Director-Sentinel,” Basescu embodies the simple and courageous individual who always expresses his thoughts openly. With a high need for power and experience in policy development (having served both as Minister and Mayor), and with a low cognitive complexity, Basescu had a preference for direct control over policy areas in which he voiced his strong opinions. Proud of never having been defeated in popular elections, Basescu shaped relations within the DA alliance when becoming its presidential candidate two months before the elections. As president, he repeatedly attacked the Liberal partners from the coalition government that he considered to be elitist and to promote hidden agendas.
Prime Minister Tariceanu’s personality was quite opposed to Basescu’s, displaying a low need for power and high cognitive complexity. He was a “Delegator-Observer,” ready to empower his loyal subordinates and to control their moves from a distance; the delegation of policy formulation and implementation was easily observable during his term in office. Less popular, he enjoyed the privilege of being close to the economic power structures. Given these sharp differences between their personalities, the clash between Basescu and Tariceanu took the shape of a permanent imbalanced war against the president, who continuously attacked the prime minister, the latter attempting to dodge these attacks by using shields such as his ministers or the new PSD allies.
In 2012, President Basescu replicated the strategy used during the first cohabitation period in 2007 and cultivated a personal and institutional battleground. After the local elections, one of his councilors launched an accusation concerning the fact that Prime Minister Ponta’s PhD thesis was a case of plagiarism. The government mishandled the issue by dissolving the National Council for Titles and Diplomas the very day that the council was supposed to deliver its opinion (unfavorable to Ponta). At the same time, Basescu clashed several times with the Foreign Minister, Andrei Marga, a prominent Liberal leader. The clashes went so far that the nominations of several diplomats, including that of an ambassador, were postponed.
His opponents were the two USL leaders: Prime Minister Ponta and Senate Speaker Antonescu. Ponta was promoted by the former Prime Minister Nastase and in 2010 he became the president of the PSD. His personality profile resembles that of Basescu in terms of his high need for power and low cognitive complexity, that is, a “Magistrate-Sentinel.” However, he has low policy-development experience. He is a leader who keeps his main collaborators under control while being afraid of his opponents’ moves. Next to him, the PNL leader Antonescu embodies the “Delegator-Maverick” personality type, characterized by a low desire to acquire power, low policy-development experience, and low cognitive complexity. In general, he passes many responsibilities to others, while deciding by himself and without taking external advice on the most important aspects. The combination of these two personality types clashed with the personality of the president, leading to a direct confrontation in which both sides displayed attacking strategies (unlike in 2007, when the prime minister had been mainly defended).
Conclusions
This article reveals how the combination of four factors—legislative ambiguity, changes in the parliamentary majority, external pressures, and the leaders’ personalities—have led to institutional crises in Romania (2007 and 2012). Taken separately, none of them can explain the emergence of institutional conflicts. Earlier research indicates that semi-presidential systems and nonpolarized party systems require a sound base for negotiation and consensus to keep the relationships between the state institutions stable and functional. Cohabitation is unlikely when competing personalities, the absence of external regulatory pressures, and changes of parliamentary majorities occur in a vague legislative environment. To this end, Romania may be a representative case of the failure to produce minimal agreements between competing political actors within the executive.
These conclusions have broad theoretical implications. One is that the institutional conflicts between political actors can be the combined effect of factors encountered at various levels (institutional and individual). Accordingly, their causes are not traceable in single instances. Another implication is the existence of a relationship between these causes. For example, contextual aspects (e.g., the change of the majority) can enhance the effect of institutional features that were previously harmless (e.g., the legislation). On empirical grounds, we have shown how the failure of cohabitation is not limited to the office holders’ individual actions. It is also the result of relatively constant characteristics of the political and legal systems. Further research can use these findings to investigate, from a comparative perspective, the type and nature of institutional conflicts in new or old democracies. Our qualitative approach can be complemented by elite interviews to substantiate some of the claims, especially those related to the leaders’ personality.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Carmen Borbely for her useful advice and suggestions. This research was conducted under the framework of the project Political Myths in Post-Communist Romania, TE 299, financed by the Romanian National Research Agency.