REPER draft: Former PCR dignitaries or Securitate collaborators banned from running for President

Unaffiliated deputy Andrei Lupu, member of the REPER (Renewing Romania's European Project) party, announced on Thursday that he has filed a draft amendment to Government Emergency Ordinance no. 24/2008 on the access to one's own file and the Securitate (political police during the communist regime, editor's note) disclosure, which prohibits the candidacy for the main state offices, as well as the participation in official ceremonies of dignitaries or officials who held positions in the leadership of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) or who collaborated with the Securitate.According to the legislative proposal, those who wish to run for the main offices in the Romanian state next year will no longer be able to do so if they have held leading positions in the Romanian Communist Party or if they have collaborated with the Securitate in any form. At the moment there is an obligation for candidates to declare whether or not they have worked for or collaborated with the Securitate, without there being a ban on running for office, which has made it possible for people such as Ion Iliescu or Traian Basescu to run for and even be elected President of Romania. The motivation for the draft comes from Romania's need to align itself with European values and prevent a regression towards authoritarianism, according to a press release.According to the legislative proposal, certain categories of former members of the communist regime will also be exempted from state funerals and military honours."I have filed this draft at a symbolic moment, when dozens of individuals who we well know were in the service of the former communist regime will be wandering around laying wreaths at the graves of the heroes of the 1989 Revolution. This grotesque spectacle in which individuals who benefited from the communist dictatorship shed false tears at the graves of the heroes of the revolution causes me deep disgust. Their lack of shame must be publicly sanctioned and I have done so by banning their presence at such official events. If they really have any remorse, they can express it in private, not on the state's money and not in public, again traumatising the families of innocent victims," said Andrei Lupu.He added that he used this occasion to ask for the verification of all those who will run for important positions in 2024, "so that we can break away from the communist and Securitate past once and for all.""It is late, we should have done this since 1990, but Romanian society was captured by parties and politicians from the communist party and state apparatus who prevented this moral sanitation. Today we see these heirs of the Securitate trying to use parties like AUR [the Alliance for Romanians' Union] or conservative trends in other parties to divide society and to gain political capital again. My gesture is restorative and preventive at this time and I hope that other responsible political forces will understand this need to encourage the rejection of totalitarian ideologies and practices and to support the transition to a democratic government," the REPER representative said.