Romanian Elections&Politics (June 9th - Local and europarliamentary elections)

[RGM2609]

That PSD-PNL coalition is so weird and forced, IMO. But, it still leads by a wide margin in the polls, even though Klaus Iohannis ratings are totally under water.

i can see a dutch surprise happening here with aur.

It's unlikely they'll come in first, but they could very well overperform. With AUR it comes down to how much support it can gather in the locals (with tons of PSD&PNL politicians transferring to them) and how much momentum it can garner compared to its direct competitor, the also far-right SOS (whose rise has been stopped by a hilariously public break up between Sosoaca and her husband, but could very well come back).

[RGM2609]

So PSD-PNL has announced its candidate for Bucharest. He's surprise surprise, a doctor: Catalin Cirstoiu, the manager of an important Bucharest mayor, of course, the son of a former PSD MP and the godson of a certain Traian Basescu (who restarted his routine of non-stop TV appearances in support of the USR-PMP alliance after 3 years of absence. Based on how he sounds, Iliescu might outlive him, but he's somehow still better at communicating than the USR leadership). And probably a total non-factor in the face of the trashcan Cristian Popescu Piedone, who is now one of only two contenders with realistic chances of winning. It also seems like Firea will be exiled to Brussels and will not run again in Bucharest.

[Beagle]

I am wondering how on earth human trashcan is apparently the frontrunner in the Bucharest mayor election, even with the relentless support he must be getting in the right kind of media. The only semi-plausible scenarios I can think of are that:

- he is viewed as somebody who maybe did some errors, but overzealous prosecutors made him into a martyr (but for what cause?!)

- he is viewed as the scapegoat for a cabal of elites, who let him take the fall for their various sins (but how does that absolve trashcan of his errors)?

Is any of the above any close to the truth? In my imagination, Bucharest is among the least fertile of Romanian places for conspiracy thinking, but maybe I am wrong.

[RGM2609]

I am wondering how on earth human trashcan is apparently the frontrunner in the Bucharest mayor election, even with the relentless support he must be getting in the right kind of media. The only semi-plausible scenarios I can think of are that:

- he is viewed as somebody who maybe did some errors, but overzealous prosecutors made him into a martyr (but for what cause?!)

- he is viewed as the scapegoat for a cabal of elites, who let him take the fall for their various sins (but how does that absolve trashcan of his errors)?

Is any of the above any close to the truth? In my imagination, Bucharest is among the least fertile of Romanian places for conspiracy thinking, but maybe I am wrong.

Well, it's sad, but it was already clear that everything surrounding Colectiv wouldn't be too much of a problem for him after he was elected in 2020 as the mayor of a Bucharest district in what was probably the biggest upset of those local elections. Now, it's true that District 5 is the poorest, most ghetto-ish area of Bucharest, but the then-incumbent PSD mayor as well as the illiterate ex-mayor also appealed to those voters. The electorate however has the memory of a goldfish, and neither PSD nor PNL-USR saw Piedone as a threat and didn't remind them of, you know, everything.

The answer to his current popularity seems to have little to do with the prosecutions but rather with his relentless populist and PR gimmicks. Oh, there he is kissing Grandma on Facebook live, there he was 2 hours ago shouting at some construction workers who made a small mistake, of course also live, in 2 hours he'll be at some random market "inspecting" whether peasant X held his apples in right conditions. He built an image as a "man of the people", the vigilante-type who is going to take on the mafia (I've heard from multiple "friends of friends" exactly how corruption-free his administration is, the bribes he takes would have probably made Berlusconi jealous). Bucharest is hardly a stereotypical liberal city, as those are found in Transylvania, it's rather a surreal mix of the post-industrial and the large swaths of people it left behind. Remember that Oprescu and Firea were both elected Mayors before. And Piedone is running against the most introverted politician in Romania, who likes to barricade himself in his office and reportedly has to be begged by his advisors to go on TV.

[Zinneke]

Why are USR trying to make this "right-wing alliance" with Basescu loyalists? Why not keep their brand fairly off the left-right spectrum? Surely there are inner city progressives who don't identify as "Right" who are put off by this.

[RGM2609]

Why are USR trying to make this "right-wing alliance" with Basescu loyalists? Why not keep their brand fairly off the left-right spectrum? Surely there are inner city progressives who don't identify as "Right" who are put off by this.

Well, the association that "left=PSD=corruption=PCR=national-communism" is so strong that even people who are by any measure left-wing on the issues still identify as right-wing. There is a sort of "Online left" emerging but all efforts by non-PSD politicians to form leftist political parties failed miserably and REPER seems to have flopped trying to appeal to these "progressives". The USR's thinking is that the base will stick with them no matter what while they try to convince PNL's former voters. There was also an incident a few months ago where they kicked out their lead candidate for voting in the referendum against same-sex marriage, which I think was a disaster but the USR leadership seems to think it bought them some goodwill among "progressives".

Also, USR avoided the left-right spectrum previously because there were a lot of leftist individuals there who relentlessly opposed any ideological defining. Most of those left and tried to start those parties I mentioned earlier and failed, so the remaining members are overwhelmingly right-wing.

[DavidB.]

Still don't completely understand the point of this PSD-PNL alliance. Surely PSD will be losing conservative voters who hate PNL to AUR, while PNL will lose more "progressive [by Romanian standards] right" voters who hate PSD to USR? What type of voter would this alliance gain, and would that offset this loss?

[RGM2609]

Still don't completely understand the point of this PSD-PNL alliance. Surely PSD will be losing conservative voters who hate PNL to AUR, while PNL will lose more "progressive [by Romanian standards] right" voters who hate PSD to USR? What type of voter would this alliance gain, and would that offset this loss?

It makes no sense electorally. It's as simple as that. The entire point of this alliance is to save Iohannis's continued stranglehold over PNL and thus its continued cooperation with PSD.

Despite what the government-sponsored polls would have you believe, I've personally heard from several people in the know that PNL was sinking fast and was at real risk of coming in 4th with 12-13% in the Europarliamentary election. This is also the story told by most political analysts I trust and it fits in with everything that happened. With such a result, it's clear that the "anti-PSD" movement that was slowly building up inside the party would have toppled Iohannis and Ciuca and taken the party out of the Ciolacu cabinet. So it makes sense for Iohannis and Ciuca to try to prevent this by hiding behind PSD and hoping for the PSD machines to carry them through.

It is harder to say what PSD has to gain from this. There are rumors that Ciolacu was promised PNL's support in the presidential election and I think they are probably accurate. But it is also in their best interest to keep PNL on their side as a governing partner rather than having to ally with USR or AUR.

[Storr]

"Romania, CURS poll:

European Parliament election

PSD/PNL - S&D|EPP: 53% (n.a.)
AUR - ECR: 14% (-7)
ADU - RE|EPP: 14%
UDMR - EPP: 5%
S.O.S. RO - ID: 5% (+1)
PUSL - S&D: 4% (+1)

+/- vs. 3-14 February 2024

Fieldwork: 19-28 March 2024
Sample size: 1,067"

The most liked comment to the tweet about the poll. Though, to be honest, the election closer to corruption vs. corruption:

"Corruption 53%.
Anti-Corruption: 14%.
Welcome to Romania."

[RGM2609]

It's worth noting that this poll is an outlier.

[Storr]

It's worth noting that this poll is an outlier.

Thank you for pointing this out. I was looking at EuropeElects' recent tweets that was the only poll shared concerning the EU election in Romania.

[RGM2609]

If you ever think you've had some crazy past few years, think of this guy who used to hold "Fck PSD" license plates during his TV show and where he is now.

[RGM2609]

Remember the random doctor the great coalition proposed to be the Bucharest Mayor? The one who stood no chance but was put in place not to harm? Yeah, it turns out he is a crook, and that revelation is not threatening to collapse the entire PSD-PNL construct.

Following multiple scandals, including forcing state-insured patients to seek his help at his wife's private clinic, Cirstoiu was polling in a distant third at around 10%. PSD and PNL were forced to drop him, but couldn't agree on a replacement whatsoever. So now they're running separately in Bucharest. Throwing it all into chaos is the fact that in the districts, they've already begun to run together. Yeah, it's a mess, and it is unclear what the future of PSD-PNL is at the moment.