The Government changed, overnight, a member of the Economic and Social Council, voted by 304 NGOs, with a person who was not even a candidate | Freedom

Six NGOs held elections on the VotONG platform to appoint civil society representatives to the Economic and Social Council (CES).

The General Secretariat of the Government was directly involved in this process, adding its own criteria to validate the candidacies and have a member on the electoral commission.

And the government had promised NGOs that it would not make appointments to the Economic and Social Council outside of the list of validated candidates proposed by organizations that meet the eligibility criteria, explained Ionut Sibian, executive director of the Foundation for Development, to Libertatea. of Civil Society. .

NGOs accuse the government of violating their commitment

However, in the final composition of the plenary, the NGOs found that the government is passing a man who had not even registered for the elections.

By vote, 14 of the 15 representatives of civil society were elected to the Economic and Social Council. Only one candidate had been elected in the “Environment” category, although there were two eligible seats, so the member of the 15th CES had to be appointed directly by the SGG from among the other participants in the elections. This had been agreed with representatives of civil society.

The problem is that there is another change in the final list, “a person who has no qualifications, does not meet the criteria and replaces a person who had obtained 304 votes”, which, according to Sibian, “violates the protocol between SGG and the civil society”. .

Removed by SGG without any explanation

According to the number of votes, Adriana Radu was ranked 2nd in the “Human Rights” category and 7th overall, in the ranking available here. Basically, he had been one of the most voted candidates.

Radu received no explanation for his removal from the list and today he filed a complaint with the General Secretariat of the Government, requesting both the reasons for the exclusion and, however, that his appointment be made.

“It is certainly not a good sign that the only member elected to the ETUC who has experience in women’s rights, reproductive and sexual rights, directions in which we have campaigned, has been eliminated,” Adriana Radu told Libertatea.

The CES member came out of nowhere, representing an inactive association

Last night we found out from the Official Gazette. He had a promise from the government and the SGG that they would not replace any of the 14 elected members.

Ionut Sibian, Executive Director of FDSC:

The Fire Safety Association would not even have gone through the electoral process organized by the NGOs, Sibian added. The association does not meet the minimum criteria, not being active for several years.

For example, according to the public data available at this time, the last balance presented to the Ministry of Public Finance by the Fire Safety Association is from 2016, and the regulation establishes that the organizations that propose candidates have presented a balance the previous year. elections.

Even in a press release issued on November 10, 2020, the government welcomed the NGO self-regulatory effort and promised to appoint members to the ETUC plenary only from the list resulting from the vote.

“It is a very serious sign of violating an agreement and ignoring a democratic process, in which the Romanian Government not only agreed, but also participated through its representative in the Electoral Commission,” said the NGO group that organized elections, in a press release.

The elections were organized by six NGOs: Code for Romania Association, together with the Foundation for Civil Society Development, the Advocacy Academy, the Resource Center for Public Participation, the Federation of Community Foundations, and the Resource Center for Roma Communities.

Accusations of sexism

The Coalition for Gender Equality, which had supported the candidacy of Adriana Radu, considers her non-confirmation in the plenary session of the CES “an attack on civil society and the movement for gender equality and a sexist act, since in his place were appointed two men who did not qualify for this position according to the methodology of this electoral process, “the organization writes in a press release.

In the same statement, “The Coalition for Gender Equality questions the completely non-transparent procedure by which this decision was made and, implicitly, the legitimacy of this decision. Furthermore, given the delicate political climate in Romania and in Central and Eastern Europe in terms of women’s rights and issues related to access to abortion, domestic violence, sexual harassment and youth access to sex education, it is even more reprehensible interference by the Government against the appointment of a democratically elected person to become a representative on the CES ”.

Adriana Radu is a member of the Coalition for Gender Equality and founder of the Sexul vs Barza Association, through which she runs an online sex education program, unique at the national level. Her candidacy for CES was based on women’s rights and gender equality.

Radu believes that removing her from the ESC also removes key issues from the dialogue, such as women’s rights.

“I think this story is bigger than me. The appointment must be made in accordance with the results of the contest, which took place on the votong.ro platform and must be in accordance with the will of civil society. I was one of the candidates with the most votes. And in my category, Human Rights, I had the second highest number of votes “, declared Adriana Radu for Libertatea.

Radu says she wanted the CES member position for a stronger advocacy tool on the issues she has been working on for years: human rights, reproductive and sexual rights. “Because there are many things that we can see not only reactively, but proactively. And the position of the CES allows it to take a breath to be proactive, not only through those negative or positive opinions, but also through the law. of the ETUC, allows it to point out to the Government or Parliament the appearance of economic or social phenomena that require the development of new legislation “.

Adriana Radu believes that as a member of CES, she could have a more consistent dialogue with decision makers on issues related to gender equality and women’s rights.

We cannot afford to diminish the dialogue on the issues that I would discuss at CES, because we have problems in these directions. Every day on Sex vs. the Stork, I am faced with many requests for help from young people. There is violence, there is inequality in the couple, in the intimate sphere, which hurts. There is much work to be done in these areas.

Adriana Radu:

At the same time, however, beyond the issues represented by one or the other candidate, both Adriana and the electoral organizers are upset that the commitment to a democratic process for the appointment of representatives of civil society has been violated.

“I think that talking about my abilities as a justification is the wrong direction, but at the same time I must emphasize that in this way the CES team has lost a valuable man,” he added.

The other members of the CES challenge the decision to exclude Adriana Radu from the plenary session

The 13 members of the CES of civil society, elected and voted, sent a letter to the interim prime minister and the General Secretariat of Government, condemning the decision to remove Adriana Radu from the plenary session of the CES and requesting that the decision be returned.

Libertatea applied for the SGG post and tried to get a point of view from Dragoş Condrea, Secretary General of the Romanian Government, but as of publishing this material, the newspaper did not receive an official reaction.