Senate President Tariceanu: Liberalism hasn't yet said its last word in Romania;better times to come

Senate President and Chairman of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) Calin Popescu-Tariceanu wished "Happy birthday!" to the National Liberal Party (PNL) on its 144th anniversary and underscored that the Liberalism hasn't yet said its last word in Romania. 

"Somewhere in the middle of the 19th century, in a grandiose ceremony at the Windsor Castle, Queen Victoria ennoble a renowned British officer, namely Stephen Bartlett Lakeman, who was noticed on the battlefield in Africa, consolidating the British Empire. He became famous especially after he imposed the khaki color to the British uniforms, making a decisive contribution to the saving of human lives, because the previous red color [uniforms] made the soldiers visible targets. Today, only a few know that in Stephen Bartlett Lakeman's house in Bucharest had taken place, on 24 May 1875, the birth of the great National Liberal Party, founded by Ion C. Bratianu, Mihail Kogalniceanu, Ion Ghica, Gheorghe Vernescu, Alexander G. Golescu and others. Today, 144 years are being celebrated since that great moment in the modern history of Romania, the birth of the most important party in our history. The fact that the act of birth was signed in the house of a British man can be seen as having a special symbolism: a party, whose members were destined to always have their glimpse focused toward Europe and do anything so that Romania fully integrates within it," Tariceanu wrote on his Facebook page on Friday. 

He also said that "the Liberal martyrs who died for the Romanians' rights and freedoms are turning in their grave when seeing how today's epigones have sold them for a handful of coins." 

"Persecuted by the communists, the PNL stood up and reborn just as the Phoenix bird in December 1989. Over the past 30 years, it hasn't had an easy history either. There have always been blows, treachery, attempts to diverted it from its historical mission, pushing it to the left, to the right, in the name of some momentary interests. Many have struggled to get a hold of it, and sometimes they have succeeded. Those who confiscated it today are not even the shadows of the true Liberals, but some opportunists who have climbed to the top on the memory of the thousands of lives interrupted by the Communist jails. The liberal martyrs who died for the Romanians' rights and freedoms are turning in their grave when seeing how today's epigones have sold them for a handful of coins," Tariceanu stated. 

The ALDE leader believes that the Liberalism hasn't yet said its last word in Romania. 

"Only the name remained of the PNL which I joined in December 1989. A glorious name, but a deplorable present. However, I believe that the Liberalism hasn't yet said its last word in Romania, better times will come and the Bratianu's legacy, Ghica's and Rosetti's will reborn again from the ashes. Many happy returns PNL, a symbol which I devoted the most beautiful years of my life and which I never stopped loving, for better or worse!," Calin Popescu-Tariceanu also wrote.