Although PSD and PNL do not openly acknowledge it yet, it is within the realm of political logic that PSD and PNL will continue together towards the parliamentary and presidential elections.
It would have made no sense to have common lists only for the European elections and, partially, for the local ones, just to then engage in a life-and-death battle for the presidential and parliamentary elections.
As both parties are well aware, it is impossible for two election rivals to govern together in a somewhat coherent manner. And since the motto is "stability," it is clear that it cannot be achieved under conditions of major electoral rivalry.
Therefore, even though the score of the common list could be lower than that of separate lists, practically eliminating risks for the coalition takes precedence.
So it is clear that the common formula will be maintained; it remains to be seen only in what proportions and with which candidate for the presidential elections. Whether it will be another independent following the Cîrstoiu model, or one of the presidents of the two parties, remains to be seen.
Certainly, the formulas from June 9 also serve as a test, in view of the autumn-winter electoral season.
The Stakes of Division
Florin Roman, the coordinator of the PNL campaign for local elections, stated that if the vote for county councils is balanced on June 9, the elections in the fall could mean a direct battle between right and left. Meaning PNL versus PSD, because the discussion about ideology in Romania is ridiculous.
It is hard to believe that there will be a balanced score, considering the rather poor state in which PNL finds itself in most counties, except for some electoral strongholds. And the exodus of liberal mayors to PSD only accentuates this trend.
Even if a miracle were to happen, the imperative of stability will prevail over any other political argument, as I mentioned earlier. Therefore, the relevance of the political scores from June 9 will be in the perspective of dividing the eligible positions on the lists.
The Liberals probably know very well that PSD will not be as generous in the fall as it was in the European elections. And that's for a very simple reason: in Parliament lies the key.
Of course, the president proposes the prime minister, but it is the parliamentary majority that invests or not, and once invested, it is the only one that can dismiss him. And between investiture and dismissal, the prime minister holds the greatest power because the money is with him.
As Adriana Săftoiu, former presidential advisor, said on Europa FM, the real powers of the president are greatly overestimated.
So, the goal of PSD can only be to consolidate its positions to ensure that it will dominate the future governance and, ultimately, through subsequent transfers, it may even be able to get rid of the liberals if they become inconvenient.
If the political score of the liberals in county councils is weak, and as I mentioned, there are not many premises for it to be good, they will have to settle for a very disadvantageous division of positions.
Probably this is also the reason why Florin Roman launched the mobilization message.
Is the PSD-PNL construction undemocratic?
In itself, no. Ultimately, it is an electoral offer that voters can validate or reject.
Other things are undemocratic. First of all, the way the press is bribed with money from the budget through the huge subsidies received by political parties.
Undemocratic is that both the Power and the Opposition are quite irrelevant to the Romanian electorate, which is rather demobilized, except for some fleeting moments of anger, so the battle is fought more between two types of captive electorates: that of the Power, which throws crumbs, on one hand, and that of the Opposition, which is swallowed like a frog just because it's slightly better.
How much better is sometimes hard to say, for example, when you have to differentiate between Antonel Tănase, the right-hand man of Ludovic Orban from the Ministry of Transport to Victoria Palace, and Marian Neacșu, the right-hand man of Marcel Ciolacu.
We have captives of the crumbs and captives of the lesser evil, while the rest is a large mass, which either has no interest in elections anymore, or is deceived by populist illusions, with the consistency of soap bubbles.