Humanist Party of Romania (PUR) “converts” to conservativism

12th May 2005

In recent days the following news has appeared in the press: “The Humanist Party of Romania (PUR), a group that is part of the governing centre-right coalition in Bucharest, has changed its name to the Conservative Party and aspires to affiliate to the European Popular Party. Presented by its leader Dan Voiculescu, the Congress of the PUR accepted this proposal last night with near unanimity…”

Regarding this fact, the Humanist International notes that the PUR does not form part of the HI (Humanist International) or of the European Regional of the HI. Today, the PUR has nothing to do with our ideological, political and social position, with our progressive and revolutionary direction, nor with our form of action with is non-violent and anti-discriminatory. The positions of the PUR are very far from our vision of the world, the economy and political responsibility, and also its form of organisation has nothing to do with the construction of a party with a “popular base” like that proposed by the HI.

In 1999, the said party, the PUR, made contact with the Humanist International, declared their adherence to the idea of New Humanism expressed in the Humanist Statement and invited the European Region of the Humanist International to celebrate a congress in Bucharest which took place in April 2000. In this opportunity, speaking with the President of the PUR, we openly criticised their alliance with the Social-democratic Party for the next parliamentary elections. The ideological differences between the so called Humanist Party of Romania and the HI were made more and more evident to the point where the PUR explicitly excluded themselves from the HI in April 2004. The PUR and their leaders decided to continue the same path as many traditional politicians, that is to say, they changed their “colours and signs” in accordance with their particular and immediate interests for power, betraying time after time the aspirations of the people.

For the avoidance of confusion, we take this opportunity to synthesise our positions: Humanists struggle for a social revolution that radically changes the living conditions of people, we propose a political revolution that modifies the structure of power and, definitively, a human revolution that believes in its own paradigms to replace to present decadent values. We have established our positions regarding the questions of labour before big capital, real democracy before formal democracy, decentralisation before centralisation, antidiscrimination before discrimination and lastly, liberty before oppression. We put everything for health and education and in this way we give to the very complicated economic problems and technologies of present society the correct framing for their treatment. From here, it remains evident that our position is diametrically opposed as much to neoliberalism as to conservatism.