Corneliu Ciontu
the father of P.P.
"We want the power, we're not wasting any time!"

Monday, the 31st of October, 2005.
A great day: I have an interview with the founder of the People's Party, Mr. Corneliu Ciontu. It is my first ever important interview, so I tend to exaggerate dressing up. I take a look at the time and - oh, the eternal woman - I realize I will be late.

I start running, with my hair like a mess (and I've just had my hair done!). I arrive at the Parliament Palace, sweaty, mascara running in my eyes.I am shaking because I am sure I am going to miss my interview. I've read about Corneliu Ciontu - he is a millionaire (in u.s. dollars!), he has political parties and people at his little finger - and I think I won't be able to say a word.

An SPP officer leads me to the office of the P.P. leader. As I enter the antechamber, my jaw drops: about 20 people are circling around silently: answering the phone, crowding themselves like grapes near the monitors, listening to the indications of a tall man, dressed in a sport costume. He is in front of a flip-chart, explaining a strategy that, admittedly, I don't understand: it sound as if he is speaking words from sociology books. I am kindly asked to sit down, and I am offered a cup of coffee.

I get lost in the background, fascinated by the work rhythm around me. A young man with a roman proconsul beard announces mysteriously: "the poll results are in". Everything slows down for a while, only to explode seconds later. Everybody wants to take a look at the precious sheets of paper held by the bearded man. He begins explaining something about "the positioning on an adequate market".

It's getting a little boring, so I start to follow a young and serious secretary with my eyes. She answers the phone with an oriental patience: "Mr. Ciontu can't speak right now", "I will put Mr. Ciontu on", "Mr. Ciontu was expecting your call". A deputy insists on speaking with Mr. Ciontu. The secretary refuses: "Mr. Ciontu wanted me to tell you that this is not the perfect time. Please wait for one more month". What a strange world!

Finally I am told that I can go in. I am so scared that I almost knock down the glass door. An elegant man comes to my aid. Mmmm - I say to myself - he smells good, a Gucci perfume: ***. He kisses my on my cheek and says: "I've been expecting you!". It's Corneliu Ciontu. He leads me to an armchair and asks me to wait "for exactly one minute". That's perfect - I have time to take a look on the P.P. brochures that he gave me.

Meanwhile, Corneliu Ciontu gives his lawyers the last indications, just two more calls (he is speaking with Antonie Iorgovan and Stelian Tanase!) and finally he devotes himself to me.
He seems, at a first glance, wise, discreet and modest. He has nothing of the "great puppeteer" that I was expecting to meet. He gives two hours of his time, although he is always phone called and asked for by the parties' delegates. He explains every idea, underlining and taking every thought as far as it is needed. Somehow, he has too much common sense for the political world…

- Mr. Ciontu, do you like putsches?
- Oh yes (he laughs)… The problem with the putsches is that they tend to populate too much of the minds of people and in a very small way the present. Seriously: if you are referring to the hit PPRM suffered earlier this year, when the legitimate president was brought down by the people scared of their future in the party, then it is obvious that we are speaking about an aberration, a tribune's paranoia. The people started panicking - the party's reforms were threatening their demigod positions, their felt like their chairs were pulled from under them… They needed a reason for the panic, to have an extraordinary meeting, to take over the party's head office. And that's how they ended up with a "putsch". As if a president would do that… Seriously, all this talk about "set-ups", "putsch", "the masonry and the Jewish conspiracy" is a fixation that is specific to a certain type of people.
- Out of their minds?
- You said it. So did the public opinion at that time. But I still feel sorry for the honest people, who are afraid and are wasting their life in this unfortunately condemned party. But I assure you that they will understand. They will realize that there is another way and they will understand.

- How many U.S. dollar millions do you have in your bank accounts?
- Oh, enough… Received from legal donations for the People's Party. With that money we will build a solid and serious governing party. So please: come get my millions, don't be afraid… (laughing).

- You were accused by Corneliu Vadim Tudor that you made a fortune from questionable businesses!
- The person you are referring to has accused Dragos Constantinescu of shooting two Kurds in the Baneasa Forest… That person you speak of said that Emil Constantinescu, a man that is having serious health problems at the moment, had taken champagne baths with his lovers… That same man you speak of said that he possesses a video tape of Adrian Nastase having intercourse with another man… So - I ask you - who cares about what Corneliu Vadim Tudor has to say?
- The PRM electorate…
- That electorate drops 2-3% every year. I was president and vice-president of the party; I know what I am saying. The people there have lost their patience and their enthusiasm. They have understood that they will always be part of the opposition, that they will never inherit any kind of power that the Romanian political life has to offer. They have also understood that Vadim got fewer votes than his own party in 2004, even he keeps babbling about a "huge electoral fraud". How can I put this, the people inside P.R.M. are still playing it safe - as they should be - because they don't want to destroy their political carrier with a wrong move. That is why I have to be able to offer them a powerful alternative: insider or outside the party, it doesn't matter.

- Ok, ok, but this man you now accuse, was your political friend for many years.
- It's a fake. This man walked over everything in his path: my wife, my child, my collaborators, my past, my moles - everything. I express my political views almost unanimously - for God's sake. Why do you think Vadim dropped a lot in the polls? People are starting to see that he gets older in a wicked way, that he is decaying physically and spiritually, that he has lost his modesty and his common sense, that he is staying a boring speech over and over again, that he doesn't have limits anymore. The people around him are not leaving him: he has become another man.

- Did you make a party just to be a boss?
- Let me tell you: when the PRM isolation group was planning to bring me down, I have already had meetings with the European People's Party leaders. I have reached an understanding, traveled some paths, opened a few doors and made a plan of integrating into the EPP. Many of my colleagues followed me because they were happy; finally, we were no longer isolated and shamed. What could I do? Could I have said: "Ok, throw me out?" NO! I will walk this path until the very end, relentlessly: I gave my word that I will do this, I have people who followed me. I can't just turn my back and leave.

- Don't you think you are overestimating yourself? Some say that you are just an "illiterate electrician".
- It is sad that people who talk about the love for parents and the love for work say this nonsense… I was an orphan, at the orphanage I had to learn an occupation. It doesn't even matter that I graduated the Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology, even if I wouldn't have done it, I would've still be proud of my condition as a simple man, a people's man, that - as they say - is not afraid of work. I don't hide behind a cardboard and I don't look down on people that work with their hands, I am not afraid of a light bulb…

- But why were you a communist?
- It's a simple answer: out of gratitude.It is the communists that raised me, took me out of the orphanage, gave me an acceptable youth. In my childhood years, I didn’t even know there was another world out there, a better world. I sincerely believed in the communist ideas, that in my case, proved generous. I woke up from the nightmare in the 80’s, along with everybody else… Fortunately, I was working in the administrative department of the state and I didn’t have to take advantage of my status. I succeeded in giving homes, against the current at that time, to some young artists, who were anonymous then. Some of them are slandering me, like the one called the Tribune… Others, even if they were against my political ideas, have not forgotten me, and for that, I greatly respect them.

- When are you going to reach 5% in the polls?
- We have foreign support and a powerful sustained core. We have a great team of professionals specialized in political marketing, communication and press. We have a good relationship with the other parties and with the public opinion. Or better yet: we have people, funds and friends. It’s up to us to politically “explode”. We want the power, we’re not wasting any time!

- They are speaking about an alliance…
- I try to have a pessimist’s perspective – that it is better to have a broader list for entering the Parliament in 2008. That is why, my priority is to create a safe parliamentary future for the people behind us. However, if the People’s Party will prove self-sufficient, we might go alone for the elections.

- Who is this Ciontu, anyway?
- (Thinking) A simple man, that can drive a Dacia, that can’t insult others, but a man that can, through decency, hurt the egos of the bumptious and frustrated…