The deep crisis affecting three out of the four parties of the potential governing coalition is significantly influencing the negotiations. PSD, PNL, and USR have experienced significant electoral setbacks, according to recent polls, even more pronounced than the results from December 1st, and the presidential elections did not bring them any bonus.
The only party that, paradoxically, benefited from the May election is the party of the defeated, AUR, reaching a score that matches its potential maximum evaluated a few years ago.
Therefore, each party carefully looks towards its electorate and proposes/accepts only measures that, if they do not bring electoral advantages, at least do not harm them.
Of course, all parties want to cover the deficit with 2/3 cuts in expenses and 1/3 increases in taxation. But which ones should be reduced and which ones should be increased? Certainly, everyone wants better collection. But from whom exactly? Everyone talks about cutting bonuses. But which ones?
PSD has lost a third of its electorate in favor of AUR. If it remains in the Opposition, rhetorically, AUR surpasses it, PSD no longer has communicators and leaders of caliber, and cannot afford the anti-system antics of extremists. So it must stay in power, but where it must behave to please the electorate it needs to win back.
So who is PSD addressing? To an electorate with rather low incomes, which not only is not affected, but is downright pleased to see progressive taxes that burden the wealthy. Pensioners who certainly cannot be satisfied with paying any health contribution. Civil servants who value bonuses and a huge political clientele.
And this means positions in all kinds of institutions, it means all sorts of budget-draining and often useless authorities, it even means political protection for corruption and tax evasion.
So PSD wants to shift a larger burden onto the shoulders of individuals with higher incomes from the private sector, from the business environment, where it is not heavily voted for. Additionally, it must strongly emphasize nationalist tones, pleasing those who have moved to AUR, against multinational corporations.
On the contrary, PNL and USR must defend the business environment, the middle class, which massively voted for Nicușor Dan. They must defend foreign investors, whose departure would have a huge cost. If you block the business environment, no matter what measures you take, you won't have where to collect from.
PNL has its budgetary and clientele area. USR is the least concerned about the budgetary area and pensioners, where it does not have many voters.
PSD and PNL, which are parties with many mayors, like UDMR, refuse to block programs intended for them, such as PNDL. No one wants an increase in VAT that hits everyone, but with a greater impact on the area defended by PSD.
The word "solidarity" sounds good, but solidarity between whom? Between those who pay with those always exempted? Between those who have always paid for the pizza without eating it with those who consumed the whole menu? Between the robbed and the thieves?
Such a tangle of contradictory interests is very difficult to harmonize because, let's be very clear, the decisions are not technical but absolutely political.
Hence the difficulty in appointing a prime minister, at least for the initial period, with major political implications. But if you do not appoint them from the beginning and they are not at the head of the table in negotiations, who would agree to self-destruct with measures that benefit others electorally?
It is no exaggeration to say that the party that hits its electorate the hardest and assumes, through the prime minister position, austerity measures could end up disappearing. It is not surprising that PSD would want to make its electoral plan with the hand of Ilie Bolojan. If they politically finish him off, all the better, right?