Gabriel Liiceanu persists “in a lie that doesn’t do him any honor”, and the combat of corruption should not rely on a position or one person, Liviu Dragnea, Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies and national leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD, major at rule) said on Friday.
“I very much regret to see Mr. Liiceanu holding fast in a lie that doesn’t do him honor at all. His interpretations, according to which my statements’ context was another and that if fact he didn’t lie to the European officials, are as embarrassing as those of the ones who argue that x percent plagiarism is not plagiarism. No, Mr. Gabriel Liiceanu, a lie is a lie, even if voiced by a noted intellectual – you cannot say you’ve lied a little bit! You know better than me that the truth is the correspondence between words and reality. Or, between the words you have spoken in Brussels about my statements and what I have really asserted there is no correspondence whatsoever. Between saying that in Romania is too much fuss about the leading positions of the two Prosecution Offices and the ‘exact’ statement that ‘we should focus on sacking the DNA chief prosecutor’ there it is a huge difference,” asserted Dragnea in a post on his Facebook page.
He specified that he maintains his statement that the two positions get too much hype.
“Indeed, combating corruption should not rely on a position or a person alone. Therefore, it means that everything is ‘reversible’. In a rule of law, the mechanisms and institutions are or should be more important that the persons themselves. That is why, I’m surprised of the idolatry you are showing to Mrs. Kovesi. The ultimate test of the so-called anti-corruption fight will be only given when she will not be there anymore. It is not me to decide and I’m not interested in the time when that moment occurs. But it will be only then when we will be able to decide what you wish, namely that the process of combating corruption is irreversible, regardless of the person who will temporarily run that institution, after Mrs. Kovesi. Belittling the false quotation marks you have assigned to me is more serious when coming from a publishing house’s head, of whom we would have expected more rigor when quoting someone. Due to some badly placed quotation marks, certain journalists have paid dearly in damages, while some public persons have found themselves with the label of plagiarists. So, this is not just an … error of form, as you try to suggest,” said Liviu Dragnea.
The PSD leader said that the way Gabriel Liiceanu has informed himself is negligent and unpardonable.
“The negligence in the way you get informed on the political events in Romania could not be an excuse, either. On the contrary, if you don’t make the minimum effort to get informed and forge your opinions in the five minutes you are zapping the television ch annels, then you really have no right to explain the foreigners how things are truly doing in Romania. One thing could be affirmed for sure: all that circus in Brussels, all that hysterical mud throwing about our country has certainly done more harm to Romania and the Romanians than a statement I’ve never voiced,” the Chamber of Deputies’ Speaker concluded.
