The National Executive Committee of the ruling Social Democrat Party (PSD) has unanimously decided on Friday to stand by the party’s chairman, Liviu Dragnea sentenced by the Supreme Court to three years and a half in prison on Thursday.
PSD executive committee has adopted a statement voicing the party’s support for Liviu Dragnea, for the Dancila Government and for the speeding-up of the procedures to adopt the justice laws and the criminal codes. PSD has also announced actions to enforce the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR).
After the CExN sitting, Dragnea told a press conference he will not step down from the helm of the party and that PSD will get more radical in all actions from now on.
“My decision is very firm. I stay at the helm of the PSD to carry out all these things and I will. I will also stay at the head of the parliamentary majority together with Mr. Calin Popescu Tariceanu.
The censure motion will not pass, in exchange, me and my colleagues have decided to be more firm and more radical in everything we must do,” Dragnea stated.
“I am not afraid either of Iohannis, Hellvig, Pahontu, Kovesi, Basescu, or of Ponta, Oprea or others. The goals I have assumed and for which I assumed responsibility remain the same and we will carry them through, together with my colleagues,” the PSD chair added.
As for the Thursday’s sentence against him, Dragnea said he had been dragged into this case by two women, also defendants in the file who had changed their testimonies.
“My lawyer and other people said we could not expect anything else but an acquittal. Yesterday we witnessed a mass execution, nine people were sentenced so that I should be convicted,” Dragnea stated.
He claimed that the political rally recently staged by PSD had increased the pressure on the formation of the Court- “for that meeting has really scared the judges”. “I realized that meeting will contribute to my conviction“, he argued.