Klaus Iohannis has not only done harm in his 10 years of presidential mandate. Or, more precisely, he has not done the harm that a president can do through his own constitutional prerogatives.
He did not derail Romania from the Euro-Atlantic course; on the contrary, he strengthened this option, the only correct one, but not through a vibrant and intelligent foreign policy, but through predictability and consistency.
He did not do the harm that he could do and that we should fear in the case of a character like Călin Georgescu.
But beyond this undeniable merit, the 10 years of the Iohannis era (the official assessment of which you can read here) have been a great failure. Not economically, as Romania is now much more developed than a decade ago. Not in terms of living standards, progress is undoubtedly visible, even if unevenly distributed.
It is about a failure of the democratic and institutional development of Romanian society. And the way Mr. Iohannis left, the context in which he left, have a harsh symbolism.
Mr. Iohannis was driven out by the pressure of a dismissal that the obedient system could no longer defend him from, after a politically traumatic episode caused mostly by the collapse of Romania's key institutions deprived of the coordination of a central nervous system. The one that should have been at Cotroceni.
He left hated, more hated than Ion Iliescu, he left as a relief, handing over power to the man he tried with all his might to keep away, to humiliate, but the only one with whom he would have had a real chance to create a stronger PNL than the one he took over.
Handing over power precisely to Ilie Bolojan following a resignation forced by the people's hatred is the last blow Mr. Iohannis received.
There was an emblematic episode between them, reported by several liberal sources. Years ago, when a delegation of three PNL leaders came to Cotroceni, President Iohannis received two of them and kept Mr. Bolojan at the door.
Iohannis failed because he did not build anything. Politically and institutionally, his sole objective was not to be disturbed. He not only avoided being contradicted but also being challenged, stimulated, inspired.
And Traian Băsescu wanted absolute control, for a long time he had it. But to build. Better or worse, Traian Băsescu built. Klaus Iohannis wanted absolute control only to benefit himself and to block any disturbance.
He wanted obedient party presidents, advisers who would tell him what he wanted to hear, including that he could become the NATO Secretary General, docile institution heads, apt not only to execute his orders but to silently suspect his desires.
All these fed a monstrous narcissism in Klaus Iohannis, which inflated his ego and annihilated his common sense, belittling even the good decisions he made. This led to pharaonic airplanes, secretized expenses, contemptuous remarks, defiant gestures. This narcissism detached him from the people and reality.
After the pharaonic opulence of Mr. Iohannis, it was almost normal that interim President Ilie Bolojan came to take over the mandate without a procession, without outriders and sirens, in the car from the Senate, which left normal traffic to enter the gates of the Palace unaccompanied.
The detachment from common sense of Mr. Iohannis caused immense harm: the discrediting of the presidential institution, the lowering of the level of the political class to a comfortable abyss for him. And the consequence is the crisis of democracy that exploded unexpectedly, undetected, and fierce on November 24, in front of destroyed institutions and a caricatural political class.
The legacy of Klaus Iohannis is everything that Romania is experiencing since November 24 in a collective neurosis caused by too much disappointment and frustration.
The path of Mr. Iohannis and Romania went from 70% to 7% trust. Trust in him, in the presidential institution, in democracy, and the role of politics.
The story of this path should be studied in detail by every politician. It is a lesson.
But it is also a lesson for the people. Mr. Iohannis was elected twice. After the first mandate that contained all the necessary signs, the people not only re-elected him, let's say that against Mrs. Dăncilă there wasn't much room, but he received 200 thousand more votes. They told him that he was doing well, that the people liked him. And if they liked him, they gave him more than enough.
There were many years when criticisms of his reign were met with indignation and insults. Because the need to believe in the German's mirage was greater than any argument and reason. Today's disappointment is the consequence of the voluntary deception of the past.