An extraordinary
\ncongress of the National Liberal Party, a member of the ruling coalition in
\nRomania, will be held on April 10 in order to elect a new party president, the
\nLiberals’ National Council decided this Sunday. As many as 1,300 delegates will
\ntake part. Until then, the head of the Suceava County Council Gheorghe Flutur will
\nact as interim president.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
On Saturday, the Senate Speaker Florin C\u00ee\u0163u
\nannounced his resignation as head of the Liberal Party. Many Liberals had
\ndemanded that he stepped down, over claims that he caused tensions with the
\nSocial Democrats within the ruling coalition, that he failed to communicate to
\nparty members and that he has a poor public image that affects the party’s
\nscores in voting intention polls. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
C\u00ee\u0163u’s opponents would like the party
\npresidency to be taken over by PM Nicolae Ciuc\u0103, who, mass media argue, has a
\nmuch better public image and a coherent dialogue with the ruling partners. A respected military professional, Ciuc\u0103 is
\nhowever involved in a plagiarism scandal concerning his Ph.D. thesis.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The former PM C\u00ee\u0163u was elected party president
\nonly half a year ago, in late September 2021. Openly supported by the head of
\nstate Klaus Iohannis at that point, he won a tight election against another
\nformer prime minister, Ludovic Orban, who had been running the party since
\n2017. Orban claimed that congress saw the most serious
\nviolations of democratic rules ever committed in a political party in the last 31
\nyears. He also announced then that he renounced his partnership with Iohannis,
\nto whom he had seemed quite loyal up to that point, and in December he quit the
\nparty altogether, and jointly with other former Liberals he set up a new right-of-centre
\nparty. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Founded in 1875, the National Liberal Party has always taken
\npride in leading Romania in its most propitious moments: the proclamation of
\nits independence in 1877, when the country got
\nrid of centuries-long Ottoman rule, and the Great Union of 1918, when after WWI
\nall the territories inhabited mostly by Romanians and previously under Russian
\nand Austrian-Hungarian domination joined the Kingdom of Romania. Outlawed by
\nthe post-war communist dictatorship brought in by Soviet troops, the National
\nLiberal Party re-emerged in the Romanian political arena shortly after the
\nanti-communist revolution of 1989, and takes pride in being in power in 2007, when
\nRomania was accepted in the EU. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
But countless in-house scandals in recent years
\nhave overshadowed the public’s confidence in the Liberal Party. In the latest
\nvoting intentions poll, the Liberals stand at 16%, only 1% above the
\nnationalist AUR party in opposition and 20% below their current ruling
\npartners, the Social Democrats. (A.M.P.)<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Liberals are replacing their party chief after only six months<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":91719,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[35389,35233,30257,29457,29244],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-91718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-citu","tag-liberal","tag-party","tag-politics","tag-president"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n