INTERVIEW The hypothesis of a female prime minister, who is now in Chisinau. “Are we able to credit a woman without destroying her in the next three days?”

Anca Dragu, the current governor of the National Bank of Moldova and former Minister of Finance in Romania in the Dacian Cioloș government, appeared in the public space as a possible prime minister, but without being seriously supported by a party or a group. HotNews spoke with one of the personalities who mentioned Dragu's name: Mihaela Miroiu, former teacher at SNSPA.

In a political landscape dominated by men, teacher Mihaela Miroiu believes that Anca Dragu would be a solution, but not because she is a woman, but because she is capable. On the contrary, the fact that she is a woman will put her at a disadvantage.

“Right now, in a state like ours, a woman will tend to be buried rather quickly if she doesn't have a strong team and a majority that supports her”, believes Mihaela Miroiu.

The explanation came in a conversation held after Miroiu argued, on his Facebook page, that the appointment of Anca Dragu as the head of the Government would be a solution for the “peace” of the citizens, on the idea that the people could return to their own, with someone competent as prime minister.

The need for politicians who “let you live”

“If Anca Paliu Dragu could become the prime minister of Romania, someone like me would find peace to collect my mind for what else I can do. Because that is the property of capable and responsible politicians. They let you live and develop. I know that she is vital for the monetary policy of Moldova. And I admire her for what she does. But we are now so chaotic and adversarial that we need someone like her”, was the message written by former teacher on Facebook.

In the discussion with HotNews, Miroiu says that her reflection refers, in general, to the relationship between citizens and decision-makers.

“They (not the politicians) are the ones who have to create the strategic framework and the funding so that our public and private life goes well and every person, organization, institution can function smoothly,” she explains.

Currently, the teacher claims that there are “governmental syncopes” that affect the proper functioning of people and institutions.

“Anca Dragu alone cannot do anything significant. But in a very good team, and she has proven this before, she knows how to be very efficient, in all the roles she has had – as president of the Senate and in her capacity as governor of the Bank of Moldova. Before that period, she proved that she is a very serious, very educated person, with a solid political culture and a solid economic culture,” says Mihaela Miroiu.

The “handicap” of being a woman in politics

“It seems that Moldovans have a lot of trust in her. Our problem is: are we able to credit someone, namely a woman, without destroying her in the next three days? In our world, which is not settled, is not modernized, does not judge in mature civic and political terms, it is a very big handicap to be a woman”, says the former teacher from SNSPA.

Although she considers Anca Dragu “extremely suitable”, including for the position of president, Miroiu is hopeless about the context in which we find ourselves.

When asked if it could be about misogyny in politics, she claimed that misogyny is at very high levels, both among women and among men: “In other words, in a way, it seems that I wished harm to Anca Dragu, whom I value enormously,” Miroiu says, ironically.

How women are treated in Romanian politics

The professor states that there are, however, other women “of very good quality” in Romanian politics, such as the interim Minister of the Environment, Diana Buzoianu, or the interim Minister of Foreign Affairs, Oana Țoiu.

Miroiu points out, however, the discrepancy between demography and representation. Although women represent 51% of the population, they occupy only 21.7% of seats in Parliament (101 out of 465 elected), according to Snoop.

She finds two main reasons: the marginalization of women by party leaders and the tendency of voters to judge women by their personal lives or physical appearance.

He gives the example of interim deputy prime minister Oana Gheorghiu – “the fundamental problem of her critics, lately, has been her permanent hair. How superficial, how miserable can you be, to judge a politically involved person, a person who makes decisions in these terms?”.

The decision for the younger generation to make

Miroiu has a bitter conclusion: “it is not the future I would have wished for you, nor the one for which I have worked for so many years”.

She also raises a question for the younger generations who want to reach decision-making positions: “what is your generation and the somewhat more mature generation, the one in power, willing to do so that you are not afraid, embarrassed and feel like running away?”.

Mihaela Miroiu is a university professor at the National School of Political and Administrative Studies (SNSPA) PhD supervisor in Political Sciences and teaches the courses Current Political Ideologies, Ethics in International Relations, Feminist Political Theories. Her research interests are in political theories, with an emphasis on feminist political theories, political ethics, current political ideologies and gender politics. She was the dean of the Faculty of Political Sciences in SNSPA between 1997-2001, she initiated the first doctoral program in Political Sciences in Romania in 2000. She initiated the first courses on feminist theories, according to the description on her personal page.