Crin Antonescu suspends his presidential candidacy, slams ruling parties for leaving him alone

Liberal Crin Antonescu said Saturday night that he had unilaterally suspended the agreement by which he was named the coalition’s candidate in the presidential elections. The liberal argued his decision by saying that an election date had not yet been set and that there had been no unanimous vote of support from the governing parties.

“I declare this agreement suspended and, consequently, my capacity as a candidate. I did not hesitate, I do not back down, I am willing, but I believe that we must be men of honor and serious people”, said Antonescu.

“Regarding my status as a candidate, known and publicly recognized so far, that of the joint candidate of the governing coalition, I begin by announcing that unilaterally, that is, I, the candidate, consider the agreement regarding this candidacy, suspended,” said Crin Antonescu.

“I declare it suspended. Because there are two parties here. What does suspended mean? It means the following. I received a proposal to be the candidate of a political coalition, I accepted this proposal, I assumed this candidacy, and it is an assumption from which I do not back down. I do not withdraw this candidacy, I do not back down, I assumed with all that it means, all the difficulties and the entire journey, and I am willing to see it through to the end at any time,” Antonescu emphasized.

“What I found is that the other side of this agreement, that is, the four political leaders who made this proposal and made this commitment, were not sufficiently empowered, so to speak, or did not have all the credentials with them when they signed this agreement. For this reason, I consider it suspended, until they clarify whether this agreement comes back into force, or if, possibly, they have other options,” he added.

“In short, what happened. They made this proposal, I accepted it, I told them since then that if they have any more consultations to do in the party, to do them and maybe after that we can announce. They said ‘nooo, we have the responsibility and the quality as political leaders to commit to this, and it is urgent’. I understood the urgency, I accepted the urgency. This was also linked to a discussion regarding an as soon as possible date for the presidential elections”, the former PNL president also stated.

“The agreement was made on December 22 and we established that the elections should take place as soon as possible. In the meantime, I have noticed two things that make me consider this agreement suspended, and as such my capacity as a candidate – suspended, namely: we do not have a date for the elections and I do not understand why. Because from my point of view, if on December 6 the CCR decided to cancel the elections and, implicitly, repeat them, from the next day, or from the time this decision was published in the Official Gazette, so from the next day, the Government that was in office at that time, should have given, according to the due calculation with the number of days prescribed by law, the closest date for the presidential elections.
It is January 4, another year – 2025, we do not have it yet, although some dates have been circulated, but they have not materialized, although in the meantime we have a new government, there have been several government meetings, there has been talk about setting the election dates, and yet we do not have a date, which from my point of view is difficult to explain, and in any case quite difficult to accept for public opinion”, Antonescu also said.

“I entered this battle, I am not afraid of such battles, I have fought such battles, I knew that there was no army prepared behind me and that I had to go alone under enemy fire, no problem, but it seems unacceptable to me that after, say, a week or two, I see people from the parties who declared their support for my candidacy come out publicly and say that we actually don’t know, that we will see, that we will have some meetings. And then my message, to close this parenthesis, is the following.

Gentlemen, I have known some of you for 30 years, I know that you are serious people, both Bolojan and Kelemen, and Pambuccian, about Mr. Ciolacu I have every reason to believe that he is a serious man, he leads the largest party in Romania and is Prime Minister, I think you need to think again. We are suspending the agreement. If, who knows, you maintain your option for my candidacy, you know where to find me, and then I will think better, perhaps, than I did the first time and give an answer“, declared the former liberal leader.

“I expect them, as a citizen, to behave responsibly and immediately announce the date of the presidential elections, to provide all the information and explanations regarding what happened in Romania with the cancellation of the first round of voting, to guarantee that there is democracy in this country, and to decide in as much time as they want who their presidential candidate is. I know where to start and then I will give them an answer. I am not a vain man, I am just arrogant when I talk about public matters. I am not backing down, the answer is up to them. I am not a workforce available to run, I did not ask anyone to run. There are enough amateurs on the market, thank God, so they have somewhere to find them, it is not my case!”, concluded Crin Antonescu.

Parties retort

Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu told Digi24 exclusively after Crin Antonescu announced that he was suspending his candidacy in the presidential elections that he would discuss it with him next week. For now, however, Ciolacu says that “it is important to focus on Romania’s pro-European path.”

“I have not spoken to Mr. Antonescu. I will most likely speak on January 8, when we have a coalition and we will see what needs to be done. The important thing is to focus on Romania’s pro-European path,” the prime minister said.

Ilie Bolojan also reacted to Crin Antonescu’s decision, and on Sunday afternoon expressed his support for him, noting that he is right when he says that it is urgent to set the election date.

“Here, Mr. Antonescu is right, if we want the presidential elections to be organized as quickly as possible. We have 75 days to establish an electoral calendar before election day. Therefore, if we want the elections to be organized by Easter, this means that the second round must be organized before Palm Sunday, so on April 6. This means that the first round would be on March 23, and next week the Government must make a decision on the election calendar,” he said.

Regarding the designation of the common candidate for the presidential elections, Bolojan said that it was agreed that this “should be done in the internal forums of each party.” “The PNL will convene the National Council of the party to designate the candidate for president in the coming days, seven days at most. Crin Antonescu is still the coalition candidate from the PNL’s point of view and we agreed that the other parties must do the same. It is just a matter of formalizing the support for Mr. Crin Antonescu within the PNL,” the PNL leader continued.

The mayor of the capital, Nicuşor Dan, who announced his intention to run for the presidential elections as an independent and hoped for the support of pro-European parties, also told Digi24 on Sunday that Crin Antonescu’s decision to no longer be the coalition candidate for the presidential election was not appropriate and will affect Romania’s image. He sees little likelihood that PSD-PNL-UDMR will support any other joint candidate in the elections.

Furthermore, he declared his disagreement with the opinions of Antonescu, Bolojan and Kelemen, regarding the urgency of the election date. He believes that it is more important that before the election date is set, the legitimate institutions, led by President Klaus Iohannis, come out with clear information about the reason that led to the cancellation of last year’s presidential elections.