The social democrats gathered today in a congress called to determine the PSD candidate for the presidential elections at the end of the year and to choose the party’s leadership. The congress was one without emotions for Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, who was reconfirmed as PSD president and was designated the party’s candidate for the presidential elections.
Marcel Ciolacu had no opponent for any of the positions. For the party leadership there were 2,264 votes, of which 2,253 for, 6 against, 5 abstentions, while for Ciolacu to be supported by the PSD for the presidential election there were 2,257 votes for, 4 against and 3 abstentions.
“I am also proud of the conduct of the congress, but especially of the balance found within the party. I saw comments regarding the changes in the leadership. I have the feeling that we all agreed, a party must have stability, it must be open, give women their rightful place. To take into account the gain. They need to bring as many young people into leadership as possible.(…) The real work begins now, the real involvement now begins. (…) You were too lenient with me, everything I promised today I will keep my word. Mihai, Sorin, send me to Cotroceni, otherwise you won’t get rid of me,” Marcel Ciolacu said after he was re-elected president of the PSD and designated the party’s candidate in the presidential elections.
The PSD congress was not only about the election of the future president of the party or the designation of the social democratic candidate for the presidential elections, but also about attacks directed at colleagues from the Coalition or at the current and former president of Romania. In his speech, Marcel Ciolacu criticized the last heads of state, whom he described as “a turning president and an absent president”.
“We have whole generations that are taking the step towards adulthood today, after living their childhood and adolescence, between a turning president and an absent president. We must tell them that in the last 20 years, contempt, defiance and indifference to people have been accidents of history. We have to tell them that the presidential institution is neither a mixer for chopping lives nor a personal travel agency. We must tell them that democracy is never conjugated with the verb “hate”, declared Marcel Ciolacu in his speech.
Sorin Grindeanu, who was elected first vice-president of PSD, lashed out at the liberals, calling them bees, parasites and imposters. The social democrat also had a message for the Liberals, telling them that “desperation to survive can lead to forgetting the bottom line, which is that their leap can also be empty”.
“We have to get out of the chaos that, through petty interests, some are trying to collapse Romania. It is so easy to tear down, but the hardest thing is to build on solid foundations, on all levels. We must get out of the paradigm of a failed Romania. Let’s bring down to earth the armies of yellow soldiers who dream of being power brokers in Romania. They claim to be a kind of industrious swarm, bees that give honey, but in fact they only sit with their hands in other people’s pockets. They are best at stealing other people’s work. They are actually, not bees, but wasps that make their nests in other people’s houses and try to drive out the rightful inhabitants. So-called soldiers who want to make us believe that they are apostolic and successful writers. In reality they are just impostors, specializing in parasitic politics as any parasites try to slowly, ruthlessly, cunningly kill the host that kept them alive. They just want to find another organism to parasitize through some political tricks, I convey this much to them, the desperation to survive can lead to forgetting the essential thing, namely that their jump can also be in vain”, said Sorin Grindeanu at the PSD Congress.
Ciolacu wants Constitution amendment, to shorten the president’s mandate to 4 years
PSD President Marcel Ciolacu, re-elected at the party’s Congress on Saturday, believes that the Constitution should be amended so that the mandate of local elected officials is increased to five years, as is the case of the President of Romania, or that the mandate of the head of state be reduced to four years.
He was asked, at the end of the PSD Congress, if he is thinking of changing the Constitution, in case the president of Romania arrives, so that the head of state has a shorter mandate, i.e. four years, instead of five years, as it is now the mandate. “Categorical. You see, after, I think, 20 years, we managed to have all the elections in the same year. I think it is not good to have all the elections even in one year, but at least let’s overlap two consecutive years to have all the elections. But I think it’s not a problem, either we increase the local authorities to five years, or we decrease the president. We cannot be more different from each other”, said the PSD leader.
Also questioned about the reduction in the number of parliamentarians, considering that, according to the most recent census, Romania’s population has decreased, he replied: “It is a law, which will be implemented. At a time when Romania’s population is decreasing, there are fewer parliamentarians. This change will take place at the next electoral exercise, because it applies from the next electoral exercise. We don’t have to come anymore, it’s a law, it really has to be respected”.
Gabriela Firea, the great absence from the PSD congress and from Ciolacu’s team
Gabriela Firea is the big absentee from the PSD congress but also from the new team that Marcel Ciolacu proposed to the vote today. The former mayor of the Capital did not participate in the event organized by the PSD, and the chair prepared for it remained empty during the entire congress.
Marcel Ciolacu no longer wanted her in the position of first vice-president of the party and replaced her with Daniel Băluță, who had remarkable results in the local elections. Her removal from the leadership of the party comes in the context in which Gabriela Firea lost the elections to the Capital City Hall. Thus, she currently remains only with the position of president of the Bucharest branch.
However, not only Gabriela Firea lost the position she held in the former team. Titus Corlățean is among those who lost their place in the leadership of the party. Another name that was removed from the leadership, but received a position of vice president is that of Vasile Dîncu, who was replaced at the head of the National Council by Mihai Tudose.
Marcel Ciolacu’s new team comes with several new names. The PSD president “rewarded” the leaders from the territory who achieved good results in the local elections and thus put them in the party’s new leadership team. Among the new names are: Daniel Băluță, who currently holds the position of first vice-president, but also the new vice-presidents Florin Jianu, Gheorghe Șoldan, Victoria Stoiciu, Mihnea Costoiu, Elisabeta Lipă, Marian Neacșu, Dumitrita Gliga, Corneliu Ștefan, Laurențiu Nistor.
PNL: A bunch of braggarts of supreme adulation gathered to curse everyone
Attacke during the PSD congress, even by the colleagues with whom they form the governing coalition, the liberals responded in kind, slamming the Social Democrats.
Ionuț Stroe, PNL spokesperson, claims that the attacks on the liberals show “weakness and, I would say, a lack of imagination” it’s the central problem of Romania – it shows weakness and I would say a lack of imagination. And there is probably a lot of fear too, because the PSD members know very well that the PNL will unite the right around him and win in the 2nd round. There is a bit too much vitriol and arrogance in the PSD attacks. I get the feeling again that they want to make their own way in Romania, and this has cost them and will cost them again”, Ionuț Stroe wrote on Facebook.
Florin Roman, PNL vice-president, described the social democrats as communists, who come to the congress to vote for a single candidate. “The political end of Marcel Ciolacu has begun! A congress, as the communists like it, with only one candidate, because they always needed a daddy, whether his name was Nicolae Ceaușescu or Ion Iliescu. A bunch of braggarts of the ultimate adulation gathered to curse everyone! All about their thirst for power, nothing about the people! Attacks, insults, mess launched by caviar socialists, who campaign with private jets,” said the liberal on Facebook. The liberal also attacked the social democratic candidate in the presidential elections, who he says was lied to even by his party colleagues. “As for Mr. Ciolacu, his whole life is a gross imposture! Such a man will never be a president of Romania! Your people tricked you, Marcele,” Florin Roman wrote on Facebook.
USR: PSD Congress as “a festival of disinformation, lies”
USR President Elena Lasconi categorized Saturday’s PSD Congress as “a festival of disinformation, lies and attacks with false data”, sprinkled with “bullying and defiance”. About Marcel Ciolacu, she stated that she can only talk, but never deeds, and she found it funny that the leader of the social democrats spoke “about theft in the middle of a pesedist meeting”.
“A festival of disinformation, lies and fake data attacks! Tupeu and defiance. This is what the PSD leaders’ speeches looked like today! Marcel Ciolacu speaks as if he is in the opposition, as if he has not led Romania in the last three years, as if he did not have the government and over 60% in Parliament. He spoke like a man who came out of the foam of the sea today and starts work tomorrow! You need a lot of brains to be able to think and read such words on paper. Marcel Ciolacu impoverished Romanians, made our lives more expensive and endangers the stability of the country through the huge loans he leaves on our shoulders and our children’s. Loans that were made to increase the privileges of the special caste and not in the interest of Romanians. Loans that affect Romania’s negotiating position on the international stage – the whole world sees us as a country incapable of governing itself without external assistance. They, the so-called sovereignists, are the first to make Romania vulnerable”, Elena Lasconi wrote on Facebook on Saturday.
“Marcel also gave us some funny moments,” she continued. “It takes a lot of courage to talk about theft in the middle of a pesedist gathering. And I’m sorry that Marcel Ciolacu did not answer any of the questions that come not only from me, but also from society: 1. What was he doing hunting with a terrorist – Omar Hayssam – and if he is also friends with other terrorists? 2. At what age did he take his baccalaureate and what studies did he do? 3. Under what conditions did he get his revolutionary card, because everyone knows that he had no contribution to the Revolution of 1989, only that he obtained some commercial spaces for free in the market of Buzău”, Lasconi added.