In Bucharest there have been major anti-corruption demonstrations in recent weeks. It has been more than twenty-five years since Romania embraced neo-liberalism. Since then, the country has made itself available to foreign capital, poverty has increased and emigration is one of the main solutions to cope with the social crisis. In this Balkan country there are many reasons to protest, but it is not by chance that in the twenty-first century the streets will be filled with people, only when a leftist and clean government has been formed.

In the December 2016 elections, the Social Democrats achieved a great victory in the referendum. As a result, for the first time in recent decades, the Romanian Government has put in place a series of measures against neoliberalism: it has increased the minimum wage by 16% (from EUR 275 to EUR 320); high salaries paid for health, pensions and unemployment taxes only up to EUR 1,380; it was exempt from paying what they earned above that amount, it now has to pay the whole wages; finally, it has announced that the tax on multinational profits. This would put an end to the neo-colonial fiscal policy that had been applied so far, as the foreign multinational companies tax less than the Romanian ones. This new measure would ensure that domestic companies have equal opportunities to compete and improve public finance finances in order to invest in social policies.

However, the new Government has had a serious error in the management of the plant. The European Union has repeatedly denounced the poor state of Romanian prisons and underlined that they are overcrowded. Faced with this situation, the Minister of Justice, Florin Iordache, adopted an ordinance for the exhumation of prisoners sentenced to less than five years in prison. If the measure had been implemented, many corrupt condemned politicians would be on the street. A possibility that enraged and fueled mobilizations against corruption and government. The Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), which pay for Western governments, companies and millionaires, found a good excuse to attack the leftist government with the support of the right and the entrepreneurs. The president of the Romanian right, Klaus Iohannis, has encouraged and supported the demonstrators. On the other hand, it has been curious to see leaders of foreign companies and banks participating in the protests, as if they knew nothing about corruption.

In the demonstrations, the upper middle class has been the great dominator of the day. In Brazil, they have taken the form of protests against Dilma Rousseff: there were oligarchs, rich people, staff from outside companies, university students and young people who mainly work in NGOs. The posters contained demands to remove the poor from voting rights and called the Government a communist. On one occasion, several young people drew a banner against the tax advantages of external companies, and then the protesters surrounded them to drive them out of the demonstration. Paul Hitter (who is considered a Roma artist) and Laurentiu Ridichie, two Romanian artists, have made several images of the demonstrations characterising the demonstrators as rich capitalists.

Days after the mobilizations began, the Minister of Justice resigned, and the decisions he himself had promoted were suspended. However, of course, the protests continued, as the real objective of the mobilisations was to put an end to the measures against neoliberalism. Romania has been another example of the insurrections of farmers that have recently spread all over the world.