Liberal reconfigurations
Romania’s Liberals this weekend confirmed the interim PM Ilie Bolojan as their party leader.
Bogdan Matei, 22.06.2026, 13:50
Established in the 19th Century, the National Liberal Party (PNL) legitimately takes pride of having shaped the most glorious episodes in Romania’s modern history. National independence in 1877, completing the construction of the nation state after World War I, the best period for the Romanian economy before the rise of communism in the late 1930s, the country’s EU admission in 2007, were all managed by entirely or mostly liberal governments.
But for many years now, the party has come to mean in-house turmoil, splits, exclusions, blows below the belt, unnatural political alliances, practices that have only tarnished its image as a historical party. Over the last decade, the PNL has had 10 presidents, and rarely has the power handover between them occurred without scandals that delighted the media.
There was no scandal, at least not overtly, at the party’s extraordinary congress in Bucharest on Sunday, when the only candidate, the interim PM Ilie Bolojan, was re-elected with flying colours as party president. The only prospective opponent, the PM-designate Adrian Veștea, gave up on entering the race and stated bluntly that he would not go through the motions of a democratic process and enable a dictatorship take over the party. He argued that the congress actually resulted in all true Liberals being removed from leading positions.
Dismissed along with his Cabinet by Parliament on May 5 following a no-confidence vote in Parliament, Bolojan has now been re-elected by the Liberals as party leader, with a team in which two vice-president posts were given to members of his interim government team who have just joined the PNL: the deputy PM Oana Gheorghiu, a former civil society representative, and minister Dragoș Pîslaru, the former head of the tiny REPER party.
The mayor of Bucharest Ciprian Ciucu, viewed as Bolojan’s right-hand man, decided not to run for the senior vice-president post following the bribery investigation opened against him by the National Anticorruption Directorate last week, an accusation that he denies.
About one-third of the delegates did not attend the congress, which fuels media speculation that this is the proportion of Bolojan’s opponents in the party. Under a congress resolution, some of Bolojan’s most vocal opponents were asked to resign from the party, or else they would be excluded.
Affiliated with the European People’s Party (right-of-centre), the largest political group in the European Parliament, the PNL has always been seen as a party worthy of being in power. But now analysts no longer dare to predict its future in the medium run, because there are too many uncertainties on the Romanian political scene. (AMP)
