Romania's political mess

Romania has been without a permanent government for more than four months. On May 5, with help from the far-right Alliance for Romanian Unity (AUR) and a few smaller but equally unfrequentable parties, the Social Democrats (PSD) voted to dismiss the government of Ilie Bolojan (after less than a year in office), which had hitherto been backed by the Liberals (PNL), the Save Romania Union (USR), the Union of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR), and—ironically—the PSD themselves. (As mad as this sounds, the PSD has previous when it comes to ousting governments of which it is part). Since May, Bolojan has continued as prime minister of an interim government (without PSD ministers) which is severely limited in what it can and cannot do (most importantly, it can’t issue emergency decrees).

In all that time there has been only one real attempt to form a new government. Adrian Veștea of the PNL (and president of Brasov County Council) thought he had managed to bring together the PSD and enough anti-Bolojan PNL members in late June, but needing support from at least some AUR MPs and senators, parliament rejected his proposed government when AUR pulled the plug on its support at the last moment. The bulk of the PNL and all of both the USR and the UDMR voted against him. Veștea quickly returned to relative obscurity and will likely never be seen on the national political stage again. He and those PNL members who backed him were (rightly) kicked out of the party. Romania meanwhile returned to square one, which is where it has been ever since.

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The method behind the PSD’s original madness appears to have been the (now clearly false) assumption that with Bolojan out of the way, the rest of the PNL would fall back in line and be happy to get into bed with it again. Alas for the PSD (but good for Romania) most of the PNL has rallied behind Bolojan who has done a decent if not stellar job. His top priority, reducing the budget deficit, has been achieved in part (it was 37% lower for the first seven months of this year compared with last) although the cost has been (a few, modest) cuts and (primarily) higher taxes. Some of these higher taxes (such as big increases in local taxes, which were previously ridiculously low) were justified. Others, such as increasing income tax on dividends, less so, not least for a prime minister who says he supports entrepreneurs. Investors seem happy enough, however, with the Bucharest Stock Exchange's main BET index up around 70% since Bolojan took office (although it has dipped a bit over the past couple of weeks).

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What the past four months has highlighted most of all is the weakness and/or incompetence of Romania’s president, Nicușor Dan, elected last May (when he comprehensively beat AUR’s leader, George Simion, in a run-off). Never the most convincing communicator, Dan these days looks a lot like a rabbit caught in a car’s headlights, completely overwhelmed by the situation in which he finds himself. He has consistently insisted that the PSD can still be a force for good and that AUR needs to be excluded from government. Were he a skilled politician he would have asked PSD and AUR to govern together the day after the vote that brought down Bolojan. After all, they had proved they could command a parliamentary majority. It wouldn’t have been pretty, but the PSD would have been able to prevent AUR from doing anything too stupid, and a few months (or even longer) of relative chaos now is preferable to four years of AUR governing alone after the next election (in 2028), which is where we are headed if things continue on their current trajectory.

The signs this week are that we could indeed end up with some kind of PSD-AUR government sooner rather than later. Noises from both parties suggest that they are talking and Dan appears to have softened his stance on AUR taking cabinet posts (comments last week about ‘the right kind of nationalism’ gave the game away, somewhat). Dan is expected to nominate a new prime minister by Friday. Should that nominee bring his cabinet to parliament and win, I expect at least six months of fiscal stupidity from PSD, with AUR given enough leeway to implement a few of its pet projects (such as imposing much lower limits on the number of non-EU migrants, for example). But once the economy tanks, as it will, voters will realise that AUR is not the cure for all of Romania’s ills and its support will begin to erode. Left in opposition its support will continue to grow. It’s not a great choice, but that’s where we are.

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Should the next PM-designate lose in parliament (and together, PSD and AUR do not have enough votes, they will need a few from elsewhere, such as the AUR-like SOS or POT), then Dan will be able to call an early election (something that has never happened in modern Romanian history). An election would now be the preferable outcome for this correspondent. AUR would win, but would fall well short of a majority. PSD would perform badly (and they know they would, which is why they want to avoid an election at all costs). PNL and USR would welcome an election, as would the UDMR. An election would almost certainly be inconclusive, producing no obvious majority, but the new parliament would much better reflect the public mood than the one we have, which, less than two years after it was elected, is already well past its expiry date.