The first week of the campaign was like a crazy carousel with unprecedented events and decisions without any political logic.
About the way USR threw Elena Lasconi down the stairs I have already written, but as soon as the party coup ended, the public space was flooded with unmade by Victor Ponta.
Victor Ponta
The former prime minister, now a sovereigntist candidate, admitted in a cheeky tone that he received Serbian citizenship as a kind of reward, some would call it a bribe, because in 2014 he allegedly decided on his own, "beyond Romanian structures," to open the Iron Gates dam to prevent the flooding of Belgrade, thus assuming the flooding of some Romanian states.
Starting from the premise that Victor Ponta is not stupid or inexperienced, it is very hard to understand such a self-sabotage of unprecedented proportions.
Why would you do that when you are clearly on an upward trend, why would you blow up your main electoral argument so far, which is nationalism? And especially, why project such a non-transparent, discretionary leadership?
I don't believe in the version that he slipped up, that he got carried away. It wasn't even that kind of conversation at that moment. It was deliberately planted information, the veracity of which is questioned by Liviu Dragnea, by the former minister Doina Pană, and even by Hidroelectrica. Why even do that?
Basically, there can be two explanations that are not necessarily mutually exclusive. One would be the one delivered by Mr. Ponta himself, he had information that he would be attacked with this issue and preferred to detonate it in a controlled manner as far away from the vote as possible.
What doesn't fit is the tone used. If you realize the gravity of it, you don't tell it almost in jest, but rather, you might put it in the chapter of sleepless nights of a prime minister, decisions that haunt you.
The second could be that Mr. Ponta wanted to reinforce a differentiating component in this way - the anti-system, on which the victimized Elena Lasconi is now riding.
Mr. Ponta conveyed that he has taken on, at the cost of rigor, to confront the institutional system, that he is willing to lead with a firm hand, which the people seem to want. Whether right or wrong, the command will be mine, not the system is an implicit message of the moment. He has also continued to attack the system in an increasingly intense tone.
Let's not forget that Victor Ponta is counting on attracting as many Social Democrats in the first round who live with nostalgia for a supreme leader in their hearts and on the furious anti-system individuals. He conveys to them that he was an anti-system prime minister and will be an anti-system president, no matter how absurd and contradictory these concepts may be. A potential criminal case would even help him.
He didn't stay long on this line either and on Friday he nuanced, saying that he didn't actually decide anything on his own, that the legislation was respected. It is still hard to understand how President Băsescu wouldn't have known about such a violation, if it had actually occurred, and in the inflamed electoral year of 2014, he wouldn't have blamed Victor Ponta for it.
So, all in all, Ponta's gesture remains a bizarre one.
George Simion
Also bizarre is the drastic reduction in visibility of George Simion's campaign, confirmed by the fact that for the first week, AUR did not report any expenses.
Of course, there was the hospital bed filming, so, we assume, Mr. Simion went through an unpleasant episode, some posts appeared over the weekend, there was also a sort of closed-circuit press conference. But, even so, the loss of speed is evident. Why?
One explanation could be that Mr. Simion expects some very serious campaign revelations and has reduced the engines preparing the strategy to counter them. But rather, the AUR leader seems to be trying to mimic Călin Georgescu's campaign, withdrawn, with targeted messages, a bit mysterious, and above all, without the risk of making a mistake in uncontrolled interactions.
It seems quite certain that he has the number of votes to reach the second round, where the game will reset anyway and then he does not want costly electoral risks.
Meanwhile, the level of the campaign is extremely low, on topics that are not related to the president's competencies, but to entertainment. But this is what the public expects. When they have no curiosity about intelligence service reform, for example, but love mothers-in-law who laugh or cry, that's exactly what they get.