The current crisis the Social Democrats are struggling with, is best illustrated by the increasingly erratic outbursts of its leader, Sorin Grindeanu.
As speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Sorin Grindeanu took the politically uninspired step of challenging the SAFE ordinance at the Constitutional Court, issued by the previous government of Ilie Bolojan who he conspired to oust.
As party leader and co-conspirator with the populist AUR party, Sorin Grindeanu has blocked any effort to unblock the political situation he engineered by refusing to bear the responsibility for the political crisis by agreeing to a PSD-led government.
He also put out some scenario that Ilei Bolojan would strengthen the populists and, consequentially, strengthen the pro-Russian tentacles on Romania’s political scene.
For any of these three hypotheses, Sorin Grindeanu should be evicted into political irrelevance.
The simple fact that he use SAFE (a central element in the development of Romania’s military and civilian infrastructure, especially in the current climate marked by various international conflicts) is a sign of political unawareness but also of acting against the national interest.
The fact that he caused a major political crisis, and is now prolonging it, with endless attempts to shirk responsibility, adds another negative to the PSD’s political record.
But perhaps the wildest example of Grindeanu’s panic lies in his latest conspiracy that the “evil” Ilie Bolojan is trying to inflate the nationalists to help himself win the 2030 presidential elections:
- “This game that Ilie Bolojan is trying to play: one pole around his reign, another around sovereignist parties that will never be eligible from the point of view of certain criteria. He is interested in 2030”. (delusional statement, made in an interview for Adevarul)
As absurd as this scenario sounds, perhaps it could have been treated with some leniency if it hadn’t been come from the head of a party suspected of trying to inflate the populist vote in national elections.
The PSD, and not anyone else, has edited its public discourse in recent years to make it sound pretty populist.
Votes went to AUR candidate (George Simion) for the 2024 presidential elections from the PSD camp, with the idea that it would increase the chances of the PSD candidate (Marcel Ciolacu back then) in the presidential runoff. The information about that particular maneuver was made public even among the supporters of the PSD.
In fact, at that time, in 2024, the Social Democrats were no strangers to such political machinations that would be more at home in a less developed country. The model was initially tried out by the predecessor of the PSD, the PDSR, when its then presidential candidate, Ion Iliescu, ran against an extremist, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, in the presidential runoff.
The difference, however, was colossal: while Iliescu succeeded in the maneuver, Ciolacu flopped.
Moreover, as the current PSD leader accuses the Liberal leader Ilie Bolojan of plotting a nationalist coup, Grindeanu’s party is engaged full swing in its collaboration with the AUR extremists.
Together they have brought down the pro-European government and shaken hands in Parliament to pass two laws close to the extremists’ hearts – one on NGOs (worthy of Orban’s Hungary and Putin’s Russia), and another on bonuses exempt from social and health contributions, initiated by AUR-ist Mohammad Murad who has business interests in this direction.
It is striking how PSD serves AUR, after the no-confidence vote, thanking it for helping it making the no-confidence vote successful.
In short, in the perverted universe of PSD politics, this is what it is essential to remember: while Grindeanu accuses Bolojan of boosting AUR looking ahead to 2030 elections, the same Grindeanu is doing “business” with AUR right now, in May 2026.
