Kentucky Bribed Chicken: Romanian Politician Jailed For Bribing Voters With Fried Chicken

A recent court decision has seen a Romanian politician jailed for bribing voters with fried chicken in order to secure a high political position in his region. Florin Popescu has been under police investigation for bribing voters in his electorate since 2012, when the corrupt politician was found to have distributed approximately 60 tons of fried chicken to electorate members as a way of bribing them to garner support.

The jailed politician will serve two years behind bars for the bribing, which took place over several years from the beginning of his career in Romanian politics until his campaign for a second term as local Councillor.

The Telegraph explains that jailed politician Popescu enlisted the help of supporters to orchestrate the bribing of voters: together, they packed boxes of fried chicken, loaded them into vans, and distributed them around the electorate. It also reports that the jailed politician will not be leaving until the full two-year term has been served.

“A Bucharest court placed the condition of no parole on Popescu’s sentence while also rejecting an appeal by the disgraced politician during the culmination of a case that won him the mocking nickname the ‘Chicken Baron,'” says The Telegraph.

Romania is considered one of the world’s most politically corrupt countries. Having a politician jailed for bribing voters with fried chicken, as is the case with Florin Popescu, is far less out of the ordinary in the nation, which is still recovering from a devastating earthquake in 1977 and a corrupt royal leader who monopolized Bucharest’s splendid center with a “marble monstrosity”of a palace.

The incidence of politicians bribing voters in their electorate in some form or another is alarmingly high, and an EU study found Romania to have the worst record of political corruption on the continent. A recent move to amend policy has meant that any politician bribing voters with fried chicken, money, or sponsorship will be sweating under their collar now.

“The move follows a controversial but failed attempt in December 2013 to pass wide-reaching immunity laws that would exclude deputies and senators from provisions on bribery, trading in influence, conflicts of interest and so on,” reports EU Observer. “Their immunity amendments were declared unconstitutional a month later. But such antics mean perceptions of corruption within Romania rank as among the highest in Europe.”

Last year, a telephone poll was conducted on American voters to gauge their perception of how much a politician’s decisions are affected by corporate or philanthropic donations — which are often seen as a way of voters bribing politicians to bring about self-saving policy.

“In a rare show of unity, Americans, regardless of their political affiliation, agree that money has too much influence on elections, the wealthy have more influence on elections, and candidates who win office promote policies that help their donors,” says the New York Times.

Furthermore, almost 50 percent of those voters considered the influence of bribing and corporate funding in a politician’s campaign significant enough to require a complete re-building of the political campaigning system.

So what does this say about billionaire politicians such as Donald Trump and the undoubtedly enormous financial contributions of other business people, corporate donors, and philanthropists to his campaign? Trump has come under fire for doing and saying things that politicians in other countries have been jailed for in the past: it is alleged that his speeches incite violence, racial discrimination, and religious and cultural intolerance. The Daily Beast explains one instance in which a transaction between Trump and a mayoral politician — jailed soon after for corruption –raises questions about his fitness to be, himself, a powerful politician.

“… [Bridgeport, Connecticut] didn’t expect a bitter land dispute between two real-estate magnates that would end with the town’s mayor—a man who would later spend seven years in prison on corruption charges—making a deal with one of the magnates to forgive him $300,000 per year in back property taxes. That magnate was Donald Trump.”

Having the billionaire politician jailed for bribing or being bribed is not the only issue at play, according to millions on social media. Having Trump elected has been touted as a “top 10 global risk,” as reported by The Inquisitr. Furthermore, Trump’s extreme conservatism is considered to reflect on American voters.

America, you might call this an election, but the rest of the world is viewing it as your I.Q. Test. And it's not looking good.

— pete johansson (@petejohansson) February 26, 2016

With the Romanian politician jailed for bribing voters with fried chicken, Romania’s crackdown on political corruption shows some signs of success. The rest of the world awaits the results of America’s presidential election with anxious — and, in some cases, concerned — eyes.

[Photo by Dougs Tech/Wikimedia Commons]