National Press Review, 30 August

Tensions in the political environment on the issue of elections merging and the second session of the Baccalaureate (the first written test took place yesterday) are the main topics in the newspapers of the day.

The merging of the elections is another reason for dispute between the governing coalition and the opposition, who fail to find a compromise solution – the România Liberă writes. The Social-Liberal Union (USL) did not agree with moving the date of the local elections and insisted on having them next summer.

The Adevărul: the USL leaders do not agree with the idea of ​​joining the elections for the municipalities and county councils at the same time with the parliamentary ones, an idea launched by the Governing parties last week. The USL accuses the PDL that it actually wants to postpone the elections until the spring of 2013.

‘USL circumvents hidden plans of governing coalition’ – this is the article title in the Jurnalul Naţional. The opposition rejected the merger and instead, they proposed organizing new elections for the Parliament.

As for the coalition, there is a consensus on the merging issue – the Evenimentul Zilei notes, but there are frictions between members when it comes to deciding the best voting solution. The PDL would support the sheer uninominal vote, without any compensation – the newspaper details. The Hungarians said, however, that this alternative places them at a disadvantage, since they would remain without MPs in several counties in Transylvania.

Baccalaureate 2011, second session, in today’s newspapers. The assignments of the Romanian language written test yesterday were clearer than in June – the Evenimentul Zilei writes – or, as the pupils themselves described them when exiting the examination room (speaking about the Romanian language) – they were super-easy, mega-simple, awesome, hot, cool. Even so, the number of candidates caught cheating exceeded that of the first session.

‘Baccalaureate with guts and no fear" – the Jurnalul Naţional headlines. Yesterday, many candidates took on the risk of being eliminated from the exam and lose their right to sit the test in the following two sessions. 240 of them were eliminated. On topic, the Adevărul chooses a more acid title: ‘Baccalaureate of failures: cheaters persevere.’

In fact, the newspapers make us acquainted with some of the protagonists of such episodes. One of them admitted for the Evenimentul Zilei that he had hidden his book... in his trousers, but he was outraged when the examination board members rushed upon him in class, like the police.

Another one – the Jurnalul Naţional writes – angry because he couldn’t get away with cheating, called 112 (the number for emergency calls) to report that his classmates were also cheating. His wonderful idea could now cost him some RON 1,000 fine.

Finally, in the Adevărul, a candidate said, upon exiting the examination room, that he had a job, so he hadn’t been able to prepare for the exam and therefore he, frankly, had come to cheat. Only that he wasn’t allowed to do so...

Translated by: Iulia Florescu and Ruxandra Câmpeanu
MA Students, MTTLC, Bucharest University