Effervescence on the political scene
The Social Democratic Party will organise a big rally in support of PM Viorica Dăncilă. The announcement was made on the day a splinter group from the Social Democratic Party launched an alternative political project
Ştefan Stoica, 29.05.2018, 13:56
The Social-Democrats want to gather in large numbers in Bucharest, on June 9, to prove their cohesion and to publicly express their support for PM Viorica Dăncilă and the governing program of the ruling coalition, made up of the Social Democratic Party, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats. This is an older idea that the strongest left wing party feel the need to put into practice now, when the head of the government has become the favourite target of malicious criticism voiced by both the president and the opposition.
Klaus Iohannis has repeatedly demanded the resignation of Viorica Dăncilă, whom he considers incapable of ruling the government. She is being reproached mainly for her indecision about the fate of privately administered pensions, which run a high risk of affecting investments and the stock exchange and particularly for her endorsement of a government agreement on a possible relocation of the Romanian embassy in Israel, from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
This would be an uninspired move, foreign policy analysts say, pointing to the government’s severe deviation from the natural course of things and encroaching upon the president’s area of responsibility and impacting Bucharest’s well known balanced stand on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Actually, the leader of the National Liberal Party, in the opposition, Ludovic Orban, has filed a criminal complaint against the Prime Minister, accusing her of high treason and usurpation of official function, for having endorsed the respective secret memorandum. It is not only to the president and the right-of-centre opposition that the Social Democratic Party tries to give a response to, by organising a big rally on June 9.
The party’s blacklist also includes the Social-Democrats who left the party to join Pro România, the newly set up political platform of former PSD leader and PM Victor Ponta. In a comment posted on Facebook, the Bucureşti-Ilfov Organisation, the most powerful in the country, says the splinter groups cannot destabilize the PSD-ALDE coalition. The attempts to hijack the government, the threats made by president Klaus Iohannis, the criminal complaint made by the Liberal leader, as well as the large number of MPs leaving PSD are part of the failed plan drafted by the so-called parallel state (allegedly occult forces, made up of politicians, prosecutors and secret services) to block the reform of the judiciary and the accomplishment of the governing program, the message reads.
At least 10 PSD MPs have left the party to join Ponta’s political platform, being discontent about what they call the authoritarian, almost discretionary way in which Liviu Dragnea leads the party. Pro România on Monday launched an agenda, which starts from the idea that the big traditional parties have proved to be incapable to restructure themselves and to keep the pace with the evolution of society.
Ponta admits that he himself tried to change a big political party, but he abandoned the idea and he finally lost the 2014 presidential race. Ponta is convinced that, for this reason, a start-up like, small project, with few people can bring in benefits. It remains to be seen whether or not it is a settlement of accounts with his former colleague Liviu Dragnea as the sceptical observers of the political scene say or Pro România is an interesting project of a politician who has grown mature following a failure. We’ll find an answer in the near future!
