Fiery days on the political scene. What awaits us on Monday? Cristian Pîrvulescu: “The role of the president is not to take someone's side”
Romania is going through a new major political deadlock, and all eyes are on Monday, when the Social Democratic Party is expected to decide to withdraw the political support given to Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan. President Nicușor Dan avoided taking a decisive position in this dispute, a fact that brought him numerous criticisms from his supporters. In an analysis for “Adevărul”, the political scientist Cristian Pîrvulescu refuted this assumption, emphasizing that the role of the president is, first and foremost, that of a mediator.
The PSD leadership has finalized the final details of the plan to remove Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan. On Monday, approximately 5,000 delegates, most of them from a distance, are expected to express themselves at the consultation organized by the PSD leadership to withdraw the political support given to Ilie Bolojan.
The result is practically already known, and according to the information obtained by “Adevărul”, Bolojan will receive an ultimatum of 3 days to submit his resignation from the position of prime minister. Ilie Bolojan said on Friday that he will not submit his mandate, stressing that he is willing to continue even if the PSD ministers give up their portfolios.
In this deadlock, it is extremely important how President Nicușor Dan will act. Invited to a show on Europa FM on Thursday evening, the head of state spoke about his role as a mediator, refusing to position himself directly on any of the camps.
“I try to keep my role as a mediator. At a time when each or most of the supporters of these parties have strong emotions towards the governing partner, I try to mediate this social situation”, said the president Nicușor Dan.
At the same time, Nicușor Dan conveyed that he wants the continuation of the governing coalition, a statement that some of his supporters interpreted as a message of support for PSD's action. In the end, the social democrats also want to maintain the coalition, but without Ilie Bolojan as prime minister.
This thesis is not shared by the political scientist Cristian Pîrvulescu, who explained that the president is only respecting the role of mediator conferred by the Constitution.
“The president does what he thinks he can do under the given conditions. But it seems to me that he simply assumes the role assigned by the Constitution, namely that of moderator. This is the role established by the Constitution. In the Romanian constitutional architecture, especially since 2003, with the introduction of the separation of powers in the state, Article 1 provides for a clear separation between the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. There was a strengthening of the judicial power after 2003, followed by its challenge by the political class. Then, we have the president, who is not part of the Executive. It is clear that his role is to ensure the balance. In the end, there is the Constitutional Court called to solve the crises that the president could not solve through mediation and consultations.”explained Cristian Pîrvulescu.
Nicușor Dan, put to the wall by his own voters: “You answered the critics with arrogance.” The letter addressed by the civil society
“The role of the president is not to take sides”
In the opinion of Cristian Pîrvulescu, the president Nicușor Dan did not take a position on the PSD side in the conflict with Ilie Bolojan.
“Even if there were people from the entourage or certain interest groups, generally oriented rather against the PSD, the role of the president is not to take someone's side. His role is to ensure the functioning of the institutions, and the institutions function in a certain context. This is what was explained yesterday in the interview on Europa FM, an interview understood by everyone as he could. The president is simply not allowed to position himself in this way. And trying to force the president to do this is a mistake”, the political scientist emphasized.
According to the political scientist, the president sent a subtle welcome message to the international markets on Thursday, while being extremely careful with the words he utters.
“It seemed to me that he was very careful in the statements made, given that the moderator tried, as was normal, to obtain as much information as possible from his lordship. (…) I give you an example regarding the moment when the president proved a very good understanding of his role: when he qualified this confrontation as an emotional one, and not a budgetary one. The emotional obstacle is informal, it can be negotiated and, above all, it represents a signal sent to international partners of Romania, to the international financial institutions, as the budget project and the financial recovery policy are not called into question. I found it a very interesting idea to answer in this way. Notice, on a careful look at the images, that the president is looking for his words, as he is trying to express himself as carefully as possible speculations on account of his statements”, explained Cristian Pîrvulescu.
What Romanians say about the change of Government
On social media, a user issued a warning to the challengers of the current prime minister. He pointed out that the fiscal measures, while deeply unpopular, saved the economy from further disaster: “There are many here who hate Bolojan for raising taxes, instead of thanking him because otherwise the economy was 3 times worse.”
The same commentator draws attention to the huge risks that an untimely change of government brings.
“Now your wishes come true. So, enjoy Predoiu premier and let's see how you will resist with inflation over 10% for another 2 years, otherwise we will be relegated to junk with the euro at 6 lei + mass layoffs”, he says.
Defenders of the current government formula recall the difficulty of major reforms and the hypocrisy of certain critics.
“All the comments here have forgotten how difficult it was with the magistrates' pensions, if there was someone else doing it, smart people? The administrative reform was crushed by PSD from the beginning. It's all Bolojan's fault? And you wonder why there were no reforms”another netizen added.
Another netizen argues that people should be more realistic when judging the work of the Bolojan government,
“Most here I see are dreamers, they want results but completely ignore reality, but they want like 5 year olds. Wake the hell up…”, show someone else in a comment with hundreds of likes,
