When he nominated a prime minister, President Nicușor Dan sent two messages to the former coalition parties on Monday:
- That there is an impasse
- That either you do as I say, or there will be early elections.
Both messages – the first being an SOS, and the second a threat – were revealed Monday by Eugen Tomac to party leaders, who said the president’s next nomination would be another technocrat.
Translated freely: better to vote for my government, otherwise you will have to vote for a technocrat; and if you don’t vote for that one either, Parliament will be dissolved and we will go to the polls early.
Nicușor Dan didn’t need to reveal his plan B if he was confident in the chances of plan A.
This is a problem of credibility for the head of state.
- The technocratic government itself lacks credibility both in relation to Romania’s past experience as well as in relation to the current political context. No matter how smart and attractive the technocrats in the government are, as ministers, they are handicapped as both the parties and the expectations of society have shown. On top of this, the country finds itself in a complicated situation that needs a political executive.
- The president’s threat of snap elections also lacks credibility, as Cotroceni has put out the idea that there will be a technocratic prime minister if the Tomac option fails. One of the reasons is that the president himself ruled out and reiterated in the last month the idea of early elections. The fact that he announced from the beginning that he does not want them and has repeated it now, leaves the impression that the president is improvising which means unseriousness at the highest level. Another reason is that many relevant parties are no longer scared of early elections. Dominic Fritz announced that he is not afraid of them, Ilie Bolojan said that he will not block them and AUR is pursuing a furious pro-early election campaign, reviving the idea of impeaching the president for nominating Tomac rather than calling for early elections. The party that really doesn’t want snap elections are the PSD and other MPs who are no longer members of the parties they were when they entered Parliament, in 2024. And as far as President Dan is concerned, early elections would catch him without a party of his own and even if he were to think of endorsing them, a new party that would be his long-term vehicle, Nicușor Dan doesn’t have one: for the moment, he has a massive credibility deficit and has exhausted his political capital after just one year in office. Given the situation, Nicușor Dan should view the specter of early elections as a threat.
Early elections are a constitutional solution, but not good for the economic realities because they will amplify Romania’s bad markers on international markets and give a bad signal for local and foreign investors. And bad markers mean Romania has to keep borrowing.
Already, economically, things began to look bad as early as April, as the specter of a no-confidence motion which had a chance of passing became more palpable.
The situation worsened after the government was ousted in May 5 and continued as the crisis extended in the post-motion phase, when Romania’s president began a chaotic round of consultations for the formation of a new majority that does not exist even today.
Snap elections are more wasted time, doubts about Romania’s path, and fears that the country may tip over into something closer to Orban’s Hungary than to Magyar’s Hungary. Already analyses and reports in the foreign press, regarding the political situation, suggestively illustrate the perceptions that have been formed abroad.
As I have written many times and as others have written with no less conviction, the reasonable solution at hand for Nicușor Dan is simply to turn back and nominate Sorin Grindeanu to build a government around PSD.
It would be politically costly for the president, but that would be the lowest price.
The high price, on the other hand, will not be long in coming if Dan does not admit his mistake, but persists in his errors, either by obtaining the vote for a technocratic cabinet, or by failing to do so and, therefore, pushing the country towards early elections.
- Because the technocratic government will inevitably be one led from the shadows by the PSD (helped by the AUR, with which it already makes and breaks in Parliament), with minimal levers for the president and with almost zero levers for the prime minister.
- And snap elections will put Romania in the red for a long time in all European chancelleries and on all the markets where our money comes from. And the result of the polls, even in the best scenario, will not clear the waters, to the extent that Romania can form a “pro-Western” government.
Technocrats and early elections? Two extremely expensive jokes!
