Now that Theodor Stolojan has engaged in the race for Cotroceni, the problem will change radically, regardless of who gets the final vote. The routine of previous campaigns will be broken, because the topics on debate, competitors' speeches, their behaviour, everything will change. This new candidate forces political parties and traditional candidates to make a radical change in their electoral strategies, or risk losing out because of their obsolescence.
After all, how can Stolojan, a single person, thwart the electoral habits of the Romanian political class?
The first explanation is that Stolojan is not a politician. Although he will eventually get a party badge, Stolojan is not the kind of anonymous figure who is automatically confused with his party.
Therefore, any attacks launched by the opposition - and PDSR has already begun doing so - against PNL will not survive for too long. Did PNL put up a bad government? Did it bring the Romanians below the poverty level, as the PDSR spokesman Ioan Mircea Pascu says? What has one got to do with the other?
In the four years of government, Stolojan has not been a PNL member, therefore he did not have a hand in the party's decisions. Moreover, the former Prime Minister returned into the country in early 1999 from a purely technical function he held at the World Bank, and then he went into business.
Therefore, to defeat Stolojan, Ion Iliescu, his main counter-candidate now, will be unable to pose among a meeting of tenants in nationalised houses or accuse him, with a voice trembling with popular indignation, of the people's suffering.
The former Premier will come before the Romanians with a CV of his own, which won't include those political decisions that were the subject of controversy in the post-December Romanian society. As long as he led the Government, the former Premier restricted himself to administrative measures and to organising elections.
This neutrality can raise question marks as to Stolojan's capacity to rule the country, but it does help him, too: no controversial decision can be ascribed to him.
This CV protects Stolojan and lends him his battle weapons. He walks into the ring with a recognition of his professional competencies. His mandate as Prime Minister has left a positive trace in popular memory, and a good first impression. Then, his immediate promotion to the World Bank and his ongoing collaboration with that institution is, to the electorate, more proof of his capacities.
It can be said that Stolojan is not going to discuss politics with his adversaries, but rather, economics. He will probably prefer to come in with a technical rather than demagogical speech. He will have counter-arguments up his sleeve should his opponents come up with solutions such as "a million new jobs."
Of course, there will still be a danger: an excessive technicality could scare voters off, since the collective mind is not receptive to rational arguments but to impressions and emotions. But, at least so far, there is little evidence as to which emotions his counter-candidates can speculate against him. One possibility is that in 1996 the former Premier supported Ion Iliescu's candidacy.
To preserve his chances, he will have to find a rational explanation for his conversion from the former communist leader to the liberal party, an explanation that would appeal to doubtful centre-right voters but still not alarm left-wing voters who could join him.
In any event, this accusation is unlikely to come from Ion Iliescu or Teodor Melescanu (who was in the PDSR then), but, rather, the candidate proposed by CDR 2000 (should that not be Mugur Isarescu).
On the other hand, if the messages we've seen so far are true, the strategy Stolojan will build for himself will be a positive one: he will say what he plans to do and won't reprimand any of his rivals.
There will probably be some general-issue criticism - such as the one on generalised corruption - but there will be nothing personal, aside for moments of self-defence. On the other hand, had Emil Constantinescu stayed in the race, obviously the entire campaign would have been a succession of action movies where Ion Iliescu and Teodor Melescanu were the "bad guys," and vice versa.
As a final conclusion, in the year 2000 campaign, the electoral speech will no longer be two-sided: anticommunist/communist, and the debate will not stray into the dirtiest of slime.
Promises will be centred on EU integration, and Romanians will have to arm themselves with a dictionary of economic terms so as not to fall prey to fancy but tangled phrases. Stolojan will be able to impose this change because his popularity affords him to pick his duelling weapons. How will voters react to this change of electoral offers?
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