The solution of consultations with the parties that Marcel Ciolacu attempted to get out of the deadlock he got himself into, through the hissing ultimatum given to the Minister of Internal Affairs regarding the date of the presidential elections, could have been ingenious if it hadn’t been too thick and full of errors, some with a potentially major cost. The repair could be worse than what needed to be fixed.
To cover the concession to the liberals by abandoning the agreed calendar in March, Marcel Ciolacu attempted an exercise that was both democratic and powerful.
Yes, it is a democratic exercise to make a decision after consulting as many political actors from the Opposition as possible. And yes, it is ingenious to use a prerogative - a symbol for the presidential function to convey that the real power is not at Cotroceni Palace, but at Victoria Palace, in the hands of the Prime Minister.
A power that, as he says especially for the party, already belongs to him, even if he will not run, and which deserves the greatest effort to be preserved (which is not completely wrong, but that's a separate analysis).
But:
1. You make the great exercise for an issue that is probably much lower than the top 10 on the citizens' concerns agenda. You don't do it for economic measures, for Schengen, but for an issue that only burns at the top of the two coalition parties, completely detached from the citizen's daily life.
Not to mention that you didn't consult on merging local elections with European Parliament elections, an issue at least as important on the electoral calendar and which has caused nightmare elections in terms of organization and hence suspicions of fraud.
2. You invite parties based on difficult-to-understand criteria. What is Dan Voiculescu's party doing there, for example, not even with the status of a parliamentarian or a European parliamentarian? Sure, you already want to make gestures of goodwill to win it back in a possible second round, you want to show what a inclusive president you would be, but the purpose of the consultations was different.
3. You conduct the consultations together with the minister who refused to comply with your explicit request as Prime Minister to initiate a government decision. Yes, it was not a pleasant situation for the National Liberal Party either that the consultations table contested by the liberals included the liberal minister Predoiu. Of course, this association visually reflected the Nicu&Marcel split.
However, beyond these implicit messages, the central message is that the minister who defied the Prime Minister is a winner, and if he is, why wouldn't any other liberal minister confront the Prime Minister? Not to mention that the outcome of the consultations, predictable indeed, validates Cătălin Predoiu's refusal to issue a Government Decision for elections in September.
4. Summoning the pro-Russia sovereigntists to consultations is one thing. After all, you can say that they were legitimized by vote. But it matters how you treated them. The broad smiles and approving looks with George Simion, the kisses with Diana Șoșoacă were not only seen by Romanians, not only provided an opportunity for PNL trumpets to announce PSD's proximity to pro-Russians, but certainly were noted by foreign embassies.
Just as in 2014, Victor Ponta's ambition to participate in the opening of the Olympics in Sochi, right behind Vladimir Putin, was noted. I am not among those who believe that the President of Romania is decided in Washington or elsewhere, but such a displayed closeness does not bode well for a sitting Prime Minister, a potential candidate.
From the entire story of consultations, triggered by an extremely ill-advised hissing ultimatum, Marcel Ciolacu emerges with diminished authority, a pro-Russian stain on his image, and a counter-blackmail from the liberals, whose threat to potentially re-approach USR, possibly with a president-premier tandem, is once again possible, after the exchange of pleasantries with Elena Lasconi and the clear detachment of USR from Ludovic Orban's party.
What could be worse? To be forced by the party to run in December even though he has already announced otherwise.