Out of the approximately 7.5 million voters who attended the vote on Sunday, - almost 400,000 more than in the previous parliamentary elections - 4.3 million voted for the USL. Such a clear victory of the USL does not leave Traian Băsescu with much room to maneuver in the consultations for appointing the prime minister, and the potential alliance between the USL and the UDMR further restricts his movements. 2012 debuted as a year of street protests against Traian Băsescu and seems to end with his complete loss of legitimacy. Even though it's been a complicated electoral year, and the economic and social crisis, could have been a good opportunity for relaunching the ideological debate in Romania, the entire debate focused on the role and the place of the one who still views himself as a player, but he has become a prisoner inside the Cotroceni palace: a prisoner of his own pride, a prisoner of a non-consensual political model, a prisoner of austerity for the sake of austerity, but also a prisoner of a non-political vision about society.
Sure, Traian Băsescu is still Romania's president, but after three successive defeats, in the local elections, in the referendum (because 89% of the votes against him is the equivalent of a crushing defeat) and in the legislative elections, his position is precarious. And the strategic line, which seems to have originated from Cotroceni and which bet on populism for taking away from the party of Dan Diaconescu the votes of those who disliked the USL, has placed the PDL in one of the most difficult situations. Given the circumstances, the appointment of the prime-minister, should be a formality, provided that the politicians' reason will prevail at the last minute.
His entire political strategy - the so-called reform of the state - enacted after 2005 in order to compromise the opponents and the "hostile" institutions (parl