Liviu Pleşoianu will be Viorica Dancila’s challenger in the PSD internal election for the top position. He announced the decision on Tuesday, accusing Dancila she is no longer fighting the parallel state, that she has surrendered the party to Klaus Iohannis.
“I understand it was dictatorship and now is democracy in the party. I want to find out how much democracy there is. As far as I’ve heard, lots of rumours, it seems somebody is trying to block my candidacy and the one of Codrin Stefanescu (for PSD Secretary General – our note). They are trying to block my candidacy with a bureaucratic issue, meaning I need to have support from 10 organisations, but I need to be supported also by my own organization, if not, I cannot file my candidacy,” Liviu Plesoianu said.
“On June 9, 2018 I went together with Mrs. Dancila to the rally, it was written on the screen ‘down with the parallel state’. Now Mrs. Dancila repeatedly says she does not know if the parallel state exists. (…) It is important for us not to change from one day to another. She said she is now a different person, she has found herself, she was not herself until now. Do you realize, the Romanian Premier says she hasn’t been herself. I can’t avoid thinking that she is led by remote control,” he added.
He accuses that “Mrs. Dancila has surrendered the party to Klaus Iohannis, she refused to conduct the cabinet restructuring, she waited for a reaction from Iohannis, even when it was about the revocation of Augustin Lazar (former Prosecutor General – our note), nothing happened. For sure there are a lot of people, ordinary people, who vote this party and are very angry on what is going on currently, they feel they are being betrayed,” Plesoianu said.
At the same time, soon after Plesoianu’s announcement, senator Serban Nicolae has also informed he would run for the PSD chairman position at the party congress this weekend.
Both Plesoianu and Nicolae also voiced intention to join the internal race of the party to be designated the PSD’s presidential candidate at the upcoming election this autumn.