Marcel Ciolacu’s presidential program is like a shawarma with everything, having very vague connections to the president’s duties and lacking exactly what is most important.
Marcel Ciolacu promises, as long as the paper supports anything, to be well so as not to be unwell. We find in „The Safe Path for Romania” almost everything a governance program should contain.
From reindustrialization and modernization, to family cabinets in rural areas, pension and salary increases, irrigation systems, we have everything for everyone.
And it's not just about 5 strategic directions, which would be necessary to outline a president's vision, but especially about details. For example, "Full interest subsidy for investment loans of agricultural associations granted by banks."
Or "investments in nurseries, kindergartens, afterschool for the next 5 years, depending on the development level of each locality/sector of Bucharest."
Forrest Gump's Box of Chocolates
I don't think deep considerations are necessary regarding the proposals, as long as they are not related to the presidential function, especially in the case of a candidate who has made a specific difference in supporting the need for power sharing, meaning the prime minister should have a different political color than the president.
What value does a presidential program have when 90% of what is written in it is not within the president's competence, but within that of the prime minister, who will not even be of the same political color as the president, as Marcel Ciolacu promises?
It is not only extreme populism, a la Dragnea 2016, but also leads to maintaining a toxic confusion in the electorate's minds, who clearly do not understand what they are voting for in a president.
Marcel Ciolacu tells them to vote for him for family cabinets, pensions, salaries, jobs, highways, and nurseries. But the president cannot deliver any of these.
At most, he can propose a prime minister who agrees with his ideas, supported by a majority that is also in line with the president's ideas, which, when the president and prime minister are not of the same political color, as Marcel Ciolacu promises, has not happened so far.
Furthermore, Mr. Ciolacu is not only outlining the program of a prime minister from another party who will start his term after the elections on December 1, but also that of the one resulting from the 2028 elections, given that the project spans 5 years.
In the program launch speech, Mr. Ciolacu announces "a real partnership between the president and the government to strengthen the economy." It wasn't the partnership with the president that Mr. Ciolacu lacked. We understand that, in the name of stability, it worked perfectly. As evidence, the prime minister took care to fill the president's purse without complaint for luxurious vacations at the budget revision.
Being a prime minister's program, a legitimate question is why Mr. Ciolacu has not already started implementing what he proposes in the presidential program? For example, school safety, combating drug consumption, bureaucracy reduction, measures for the diaspora, healthcare in rural areas.
Support for vulnerable students? Even today, in Prime Minister Ciolacu's term, some of them do not benefit from transportation to school, let alone hot meals.
So Mr. Ciolacu promises to do the prime minister's job as president, which he doesn't do as prime minister. But if he promises that, wouldn't it be normal to accompany the program with a detailed presentation of what has been agreed for the next 7 years in Brussels to reduce the deficit from 8% to under 3%?
Marcel Ciolacu's electoral candy box is, like Forrest Gump's famous box of chocolates, full of nicely packaged surprises.
For example, "Decrease in taxes and a tax rate of up to 5 percentage points on gross salaries below 5,700 lei, respectively 8,500 lei in 2029, regressive and depending on the number of children."
But this is exactly the denial of the flat tax. If we start with a regressive tax, why not switch to a progressive one? Especially since the household tax has already been hinted at.
The Essential Missing Element
As I mentioned, from the shawarma with all the populisms flowing through the reader's fingers, there are some key elements missing that, surprise, are directly related to the duties of the position for which Mr. Ciolacu is running.
As "the President of Romania ensures compliance with the Constitution" (Article 80 of the Constitution), presides over CSM meetings in which they participate, signs judges' entry into the profession, and appoints chief prosecutors (in the case of the ICCJ leadership, the attribute is emptied of content), the President of Romania certainly plays an important role in the functioning of Justice.
Well, in Mr. Ciolacu's program, Justice doesn't even benefit from a single paragraph.
Then, the head of state is the chair of CSAT, is the one who proposes the heads of SRI and SIE to Parliament, is the main beneficiary of classified information. There is not a single letter in his project about any plan to reform these institutions.
In the launch speech, Mr. Ciolacu states: "as president, I will use all my energy for Romania to develop in peace and tranquility. Romania will not be drawn into any war!"
Sure, that's what Romanians want to hear. But beyond that, what does the prime minister announce? That Romania will not go to war on its own, without NATO. It's a good clarification for those who believe we can start shooting down drones, maybe with a jar of pickles, without coordination with the alliance we are part of.
But if another NATO country is attacked and requests the activation of Article 5? So, implicitly, Romania's entry into war together with the rest of the alliance? The devil is always in the details.
Therefore, there is nothing to understand from Mr. Ciolacu's presidential program as a sitting prime minister. Everything for everyone. In fact, nothing for anyone.