INTERVIEW A PSD leader, mayor of a big city: “Most politicians don't want or don't have the ability to adapt to the new realities”

“If we turned down the volume on what happened in Bucharest, we could see a somewhat more interesting overall picture”, says a PSD mayor in the country, in a dialogue with HotNews. Ionuț Pucheanu, the mayor of Galaţi, who is in his third term, claims that the result in the capital is not a disastrous one for the party and accuses that “the association with the right-wing ones, especially USR, and with Mr. Bolojan's measures, did us no good.”

• In 2024, Ionuț Pucheanu won the third term as mayor of Galați. He joined PSD leadership in 2020 as vice president, when Marcel Ciolacu was elected party leader. Pucheanu is also currently part of the team leading the party as first vice-president.

“USR cannibalized itself with PNL, we with AUR”

– What do you think happened on election Sunday in Bucharest? PSD is the largest party in the country, but Daniel Băluță ranked 3rd in the capital.
– Now, if you want, we find a lot of explanations. In reality, Bucharest is philo-right. Only in absolutely exceptional situations did the Capital show us that it could vote for a left-wing candidate.

What happened? I think it's the same thing that happened all over the political scene. USR cannibalized itself with PNL, we with AUR. I think… it's just an absolutely personal opinion, I think that the permanent polls with Daniel Băluță in first place had the opposite effect.

It's the first time, after a fantastic long time, when I, as a party man, inside the party feel a cohesion and a common effort and a beautiful feeling: that we have a real chance to win. That was inside the party and I think we will have to look for this effect in the future.

How? Remains to be seen. In the opposing camp, to put it this way, my theory is that they woke up the monster and it intervened, I think in the minds of people on the right, the idea that the battle is very close and that they can change things. It turns out I can.

“It seems the constant presence on TV, the anti-everything positioning is catching on”

Once, fair play would be to congratulate your opponents. I think it was a solid campaign to a large extent, at least with Daniel Băluță and Mr. Ciucu, because they had something to say about you, a campaign based on projects, on each one's achievements, with very few attacks on each other, almost none. They only attacked those who could not say anything about them. In this case, Mr. Drula and Mrs. Alexandrescu.

I also think that AUR had a surprising candidate that caught on with the public. It seems that the constant presence on TV, the anti-system, anti-Bolojan, anti-everything positioning is catching on.

We have to admit that there is a fairly consistent feeling of frustration among the citizens, which it seems that the populists manage to capitalize on until now. This is also possible. It's as possible as possible.

“Not gratifying, but not disastrous either”

– Daniel Băluță obtained 20%. What do you think the actual score of the party is?
– I never believed that the party was at 15%, nor at 12%, nor at 10%, as I hear now. I think that at the moment a national score of just over 20% is a real score. I strongly believe that the party score starts with 2 ahead.

But if we turned down the volume on what happened in Bucharest, we could see a somewhat more interesting overall picture. I don't know how today's headlines would have looked, if the PSD had managed to capitalize on the Bucharest competition. Because in the country, out of 14 other competitions, the PSD won 12.

To be honest, we cannot equate Bucharest with any of the other localities. Neither in size, nor in importance, nor in symbolism and all the rest, but, not being a PSD fiefdom, I mean in Bucharest, I think that if the headlines of the day should have, or could, write in larger letters than the print or the size of the newspaper sheet if Marcel Ciolacu lost in Buzau.

That was tragedy. The fact that we went out on three is a momentary situation. It's not gratifying, not at all, but not as disastrous as it is reported to be.

I'm not going to go into that logic and I'm going to tell you that we learned what the citizens told us, because no party learns from what the citizens told them, and I think that politics in Romania is based on emotion, it's based on a lot of demagoguery, too much demagoguery recently and too few results.

“Things have changed. The mayor is not a sheep”

– Daniel Băluță came out first only in Sector 4. How do you explain the fact that the other PSD sector mayors, Rares Hopincă, Robert Negoiță, and even Vlad Popescu Piedone, who supported him in the campaign, failed to mobilize the electorate?
– We, I think both you in the press, may I be forgiven, but also we, those in politics, are stuck in some data. What do I understand? Dom'le, that's how it was given, that's how it was done. 10 years ago, the mayor, if he sneezed, the whole village would catch the flu and so on.

Things have changed. It seems to me that most politicians do not want or do not have the ability to adapt to the new realities of the political spectrum. There are some unrealistic expectations vis-à-vis the mayor.

The mayor does not lead some sheep and at his signal, ready, the way opens. That period has long passed. People have the ability to inform or misinform, depending on how you want to take it.

But this expectation at the level of mayors, we put everyone to the vote, has long passed.

I think that if local elections were held tomorrow at the national level, I think that the data of the problem would not be much changed compared to the situation a year ago, when I was also a candidate.

Why? Because the citizen has learned very well to differentiate between what local politics means, what the elected mayor has delivered for the community, what Parliament means, what Parliament does, what they expect from Parliament, who the president is, what about him.

These things 10, 15, 20 years ago, you know, were still almost unknown to most citizens with the right to vote. Citizen makes a fantastic differentiator. I'm telling you from the perspective of the mayor.

“People didn't vote for Ciucu because they are Bolojan fans”

– Do you think that the electorate is somehow disappointed by the PSD? Because, from the citizens' perspective, Daniel Băluță had achievements in Sector 4, he had 3 mandates.
– I think that the association with the right-wing ones, especially USR, and with Mr. Bolojan's measures, I think that strictly now, as a snapshot, in Bucharest, has not done us any good.

If we were to look at the country, where we won almost everything, it would be a different picture. I wouldn't make a comparison, but I don't think it's doing us much good with this bunch of decisions that we've made either willingly or unwillingly.

For sure, what I can tell you, I would have the courage to put my mandate on the line, people did not vote with Mr. Ciucu because they are mega fans of Mr. Bolojan and Bolojan's measures.

There is no one in his right mind to appreciate everything, to say “yes, the direction is right”. The method is disastrous. I think there should have been a lively debate in the alliance about the chosen method of getting from A to B. But there wasn't.

“It goes a lot on emotions. And on how good or insensitive you are, in Romanian”

– Because you are also the mayor, what do you think PSD, both the party and the Bucharest organization, should do to ensure a better score in the capital in the next elections or maybe even the position of general mayor?
– It's very difficult. It's premature, you realize. 3 years from now is a long time. In politics, as in life, things can happen from one hour to the next. I think a more up-to-date communication for the times with some topics closer to the citizen's daily agenda, with a much improved way of conveying your message.

Lately, if on a local level things or achievements matter, or enter into the analysis of each citizen when he wears the cap or not, when we talk about the national spectrum, we go a lot on emotions. And how good or insensitive you are, in Romanian, at playing with people's feelings.

As populists do otherwise. Codin Maticiuc used to have some extremely interesting shirts, a message stuck in my head. It perfectly describes what the populists are doing at the moment: “No one can give you what I can promise you.”

When you enter the game, the problem data changes fundamentally. To show what Mr. Simion is like, I think he should have been exposed – with the risks of rigor.

“George Simion took half of what Anca Alexandrescu took”

– If they do not enter government until 2028, will they remain as great a danger?
– I still stick to my opinion, I have no data. I'm a guy who goes a lot on instinct. I think that with any other candidate besides Anca Alexandrescu he would have registered a much lower percentage.

Anca Alexandrescu has a reputation for saying what she says every night on TV, positioning herself vis-à-vis one and the other in one way and another. And George Simion has this gift of appearing to be something other than what he is.

If AUR came even with Simion, I think he would get half of what Anca Alexandrescu got. It's an opinion.

What did PSD's internal polls show

– In PSD's internal polls, Daniel Băluță was in 1st place. Did Anca Alexandrescu have such a high score?
– Yes. It appeared quite high. On 3. With a difference of 4-5% compared to the one who was in 2nd place, in this case Mr. Ciucu.

The subject of the apartments (ed. The investigation of the Snoop investigation site which showed that Daniel Băluță's parents bought 8 apartments in one day) which was reacted to rather late, meant something from an electoral point of view. I have no measurements, I'm just telling you what I feel and what I think.

On the one hand. And I think that on the last hundred meters at Mr. Ciucu's place, a form of useful vote intervened on the right side. That is, a transfer of peocents from Drula to Ciucu.

It also had an interesting effect on the last survey (n.ed. carried out by AtlasIntel at the request of HotNews) in which Alexandra Alexandrescu came out on top.

I think it was a call to action on the right side. That's it.

In the presidential, a Nordis or any other scandal of that kind held the front page of the media for months on a completely and completely different level. Instead, Daniel had a consistent campaign based on projects, on solutions, no attacks, no nothing.

You can't control everything in life, sometimes it depends on luck. It's like fishing. You went today, you caught, you went the next day to the same place, the same bait, you don't shoot anything. That's right. Why? You didn't do anything different than you did yesterday. And yet the results are different.