Dracula, the infamous 1897 Gothic horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker, depicts the legendary character of Count Dracula of Transylvania, a region of Romania. Stoker did not invent the vampire Dracula, but he did define the malevolent character in its present-day model. A largely epistolary novel, the narrators are the novel's protagonists. In much the same manner, the people of Romania are today redefining their political future. Romania has had a hellish history. Nevertheless, the Romanian people have persistently refused to be like Stoker's Lucy, Dracula's victim, and waste away as a result of a series of blood-suckers. If the Romanian order proves too brittle to metamorphose, then it will simply crumble. Networks of Romanian citizens are already discussing further reforms, with the evolution of open government in the ex-Communist countries of Eastern Europe illustrating the ways in which popular demands for social justice coupled with universal values can give rise to democratic structures and powerful civic networks. The former Communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu and Dracula, it is to be hoped, have been consigned to a distant past. It is against this grim backdrop that Romanian Prime Minister Sorin Mihai Grindeanu retracted a controversial decree decriminalising corruption offences by officials after the fifth consecutive night of mass protests against it. Romanians in their tens of thousands have been flocking to the streets of the capital Bucharest and other cities in sub-zero temperatures in an almost unprecedented attempt to embrace the principles and values of open societies and open governments. “We'll hold an extraordinary meeting on Sunday to repeal the decree, withdraw, cancel it, and find a legal way to make sure it does not take effect,” Grindeanu declared last Saturday as he bowed to the popular pressure. The decree was due to come into force at midnight on Friday. Under its proposed terms it would have decriminalised abuse of power offences where sums of less than 44,000 euros were involved. The anti-corruption fight against politicians and senior officials is anchored in a commitment to the values enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948. One immediate beneficiary of the decree had it been allowed to pass would have been Liviu Dragnea who leads the ruling Socialist Democratic Party, the Partidul Socialist Democrat (PSD), and faces charges of defrauding the state of 24,000 euros. The present demonstrations are the largest to have taken place in the country since the fall of the dictator in 1989. Ceaușescu took power in 1965, and even though Romania was a Communist state, under his rule the country charted an independent foreign policy, largely free of Soviet dictates. Ceaușescu condemned the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 as “a big mistake, [and] a serious danger to peace in Europe and to the fate of Communism in the world”. Romania under Ceaușescu also established diplomatic relations with what was then West Germany in 1967. Romania was the only Communist state to maintain diplomatic relations with Israel, and yet Bucharest also maintained close cultural, diplomatic and economic relationships with Arab nations and played a key role in the Egypt-Israel and Israel-Palestine Liberation Organisation peace talks in the 1970s. Internally, Ceaușescu buttressed authoritarian rule and the cult of the personality by strengthening the country's notorious Securitate secret police. The Ceaușescu dictatorship, which lasted from March 1965 to December 1989, was notorious for imposing harsh punishments on anti-Communist dissidents, such as internal exile and internment in forced labour camps and prisons. Many Romanian opposition figures disappeared or were assassinated. Economically, the country was a mess, and Romania's foreign debt sharply increased between 1977 and 1981 from $3 billion to $10 billion. Romania came under the control of international financial organisations such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Domestic repression led to a dramatic decrease in the dictator's popularity and culminated in Ceaușescu's overthrow and execution, together with his wife Elena, in the December 1989 Revolution. The couple were hastily tried and convicted by a military tribunal and executed by firing squad. Most Romanians welcomed the verdict of what some believed had been a kangaroo court. The post-1989 regimes in the country have been criticised for allowing foreign exploitation of minerals, rare metals and gold reserves in Rosia Montana, a region of the country. However, Romania also saw a period of relative economic prosperity, with one of the highest economic growth rates in Europe in the 2000s when it was even referred to as “the Tiger of Eastern Europe”. Nevertheless, the standard of living in Romania was still among the lowest in Europe after the country joined NATO in 2004 and became a full member of the European Union in January 2007. Speaking personally, I have a special emotional connection with Romania as it is the country in which my father Kwame Nkrumah breathed his last. Today, the vast majority of the Romanian population is unhappy with the corruption in the country, and the political establishment has been widely castigated for permitting the American multinational Chevron to prospect for shale gas using the hydraulic fracking technique which has been claimed to pollute underground freshwater reserves in affected areas. Since 1989, Romania has pursued a policy of strengthening relations with the West, more specifically with the United States and the EU. Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton once declared that, “Romania is one of the most trustworthy and respectable partners of the US.” Current Romanian President Klaus Werner Iohannis is an ethnic German and a Transylvanian Saxon. Ethnic Germans make up 0.2 per cent of the country's population, and Iohannis is the fourth president of German ancestry in Eastern Europe in the post-Communist period after Rudolf Schuster of Slovakia and Ferenc Mádland Pál Schmitt of Hungary. He is the first Romanian president since Ceaușescu with no past ties to the former system. He bolstered his political career by representing the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania, a German lobby, in 2000. Though head of state, real power in the country lies with Prime Minister Grindeanu who assumed office in January. The shift from Communism to liberal democracy in Romania has been inexorable. Romanians have learned the lesson that people must come first and that they can overthrow intolerable governments. Grindeanu's government is not intolerable. Yet, the anger that is fuelling the transformation has been giving the Romanian people more power than they have ever experienced before. As Al-Ahram Weekly went to press, Romanian protesters had taken to the streets for almost a week and now they demand the removal of Grindeanu and slammed his socialist sympathisers whom they called “thieves”. Romanian President Iohannis grilled Grindeanu's government for lack of transperancy and corruption in a capricious rebuke.
