Last Thursday, the foreign press found out, and from her and us, the plebes, that Romania notified NATO regarding Mr. Iohannis’ intention to become the secretary general of the North Atlantic Alliance from October.
The presidential election had just been moved to September. Of course, the first question to confirm or deny the candidacy was to the Presidential Administration.
To this today, President Iohannis did not have the good sense to give a concrete answer. If it was a candidacy by a natural person, like Mircea Geoană's for the second position in the NATO hierarchy or like Mrs. Kovesi's for EPPO, Mr. Iohannis was absolutely entitled to choose whether or not to keep a career plan secret, an absolutely personal matter.
But the candidacy of Mr. Iohannis would not be one for a natural person, but one for which the Romanian state proposes him. So, in a way, his candidacy is on behalf of the Romanian citizens. President Iohannis, therefore, has an obligation not only of common sense, but also of politic nature, to clarify an official position of the Romanian state. And also the Government that would have made the proposal.
The absence of a clarification regarding a position of the Romanian state is proof of the president's deep contempt for those who gave him and are paying for his mandate, with all its fantasies. It is the same attitude as in the case of the pharaonic plane about whose cost, paid from public money, he defiantly refused to give any information about to the very payers of said public money.
Simply put, Mr. Iohannis is entitled to everything: to hijack Romania's interests in his own interest, to set elections and change laws in his own interest, to use public money in his own interest, for luxury of all kinds, to hold any office.
The future foreign office, in NATO or the EU, is no exception to the chronic entitlement. The argument he made recently for this? It’s because he is Eastern European. Therefore, he does not claim the position because he deserves it by the balance of his career so far, by performance, not because he has real support, not because he is invited, but because he is entitled to it by virtue of simply belonging to a certain part of the EU.
Voices from Romania, but also some external commentators think that an Eastern European could better understand the interests, fears, expectations of the very tried eastern flank of the Alliance. It is an argument that should be excluded when it comes to Mr. Iohannis.
The only interests, fears, expectations that interest him in a position are his own, generally related to a serious addiction to extreme luxury, and as soon as he sees he has it in the bag, the only goal is to satisfy himself to the fullest.
Those who expect involvement, effort, loyalty from Mr. Iohannis, in Romania, NATO or the EU, should look carefully at his time in the office, at the way he treats his citizens, including the fact that he does not know how to faster give up his mandate to get on the next metaphorical ship that he sometimes claims, other times begs for with a public performance of lamentable provincialism.
Give Klaus Iohannis what he wants and you'll only see him in "hakuna matata" clips and safari pictures. When it comes to his reign, the phrase "he wouldn't do something like that" is totally unrealistic. He would do whatever served his interest.
And a proof is this very candidacy for the head of NATO, announced in response to the support already expressed by two thirds of the NATO countries for another candidate and which exploits and stimulates some frustrations, perhaps justified somewhere, but which have no point given the war at the border.
This candidacy can only have the effect of highlighting and widening a fissure in the unity of the allies, which is of great use to Vladimir Putin, it is not for nothing that Viktor Orban is involved.
How can you expect a president who so openly despises his people, who lends himself in self-interest to such blackmail strategies at such times, to be a loyal and dedicated partner after you get his ducks in a row?
There also remains the interesting question, worthy of in-depth political research, how is it possible that a president at the end of his term, with collapsed popular support, without any political record in the public interest, without any successful project, does not become lame duck, but he retains total power in his own party, and also in front of the country's largest political party, which he demonized when he had the interest.
In the end, regardless of whether he formally signed it or not, Marcel Ciolacu explicitly supports Mr. Iohannis' candidacy for any position, body and soul, and accepts the electoral calendar that will facilitate his ambitions. There is information that, as a last resort, Mr. Ciolacu is willing to put pressure on the socialist group so that they give Mr. Iohannis some position that will go to them, if he does not come out with the PPE.
No one has managed to do something like this before.
In my opinion, Mr. Iohannis' secret is a combination of extreme cynicism and rare luck. Extremely cynical was the way he cleared the PNL of any politician who could raise even the slightest risk of disobedience. Let it not happen like Traian Băsescu in front of Vasile Blaga.
Mr. Iohannis personally saw to it that there were no leaders of any caliber in the PNL and to promote only humble servants. He emasculated the party meticulously, turning the PNL into an amorphous mass, without personality, without identity, without leaders, which he handles like a herd in the direction of his interests.
It is an irony of proportions that, according to the Recorder, Mr. Iohannis is preparing, with 7 million euros of public money, as his future palace, the very building that was the PNL Bucharest headquarters for years, while the party had an identity and leaders, those who called Mr. Iohannis to PNL. He entered, he destroyed, he occupied as natural person, he reigns.
On the other hand, he was also very lucky. The biggest one was called Liviu Dragnea, who brought PSD very close to destruction, giving Klaus Iohannis, in the antithesis, the gift of an extremely easy appearance of a hero.
But also the luck of an accentuated degradation of the quality of the political class that failed to deliver any outstanding figure, able to oppose it and capture public support, but only mediocre vulnerable ones.
After 10 years of his rule, the people detest the political class, they want nothing but independents everywhere (another illusion that will break at some point like that of the government of technocrats), they no longer trust democracy and its mechanisms, and the prestige and respect for the presidential office is seriously damaged.
What would the king leave behind at NATO or the EU?