As if the suffocation of the European elections by the local ones wasn’t enough, the campaign for the presidential elections has intensified, moved, for reasons no one understands anymore, to September.
Mircea Geoană has been campaigning for the presidency since last year. His intention is very transparent and expressed as clearly as possible, even pushing the limits of his current position.
Mr. Geoană is traveling the country far and wide, holding meetings, constantly giving interviews. He lacks street visibility because for now he cannot do that, and there is no territorial network of local elected officials mobilized to the maximum at this moment.
On the visual side, an early start was made by Cătălin Drulă, who, although not running for any specific position on June 9, has placed numerous billboards with his face, logo, and slogan ADU in major cities.
It is worth noting that, according to almost all polls, Mr. Drulă is not a driving force for his party, being at a lower level than USR. Therefore, we are in an inverse equation, as Mr. Drulă aims to capture some of the electoral agitation and mobilization of his party's electorate.
For the same reason and from the same position, as a wagon, not a locomotive in relation to the party, Nicolae Ciucă has also explicitly launched his presidential candidacy.
Moreover, an initial merger project for this year was to move the presidential elections alongside the local ones, which were supposed to take place at the normal term, in September. If it didn't work out that way, the local campaign is being used as much as possible.
Mr. Ciucă has a large street display on all roads, often associated with local figures with much stronger electoral power, but he also has a multitude of video clips with presidential messages on social networks (here and here).
Right from the start, the successor of Brătianu with the PNL logo has nothing liberal in these messages. Mr. Ciucă's discourse pillars are faith, family, traditions, and the army. Legitimate and indisputable values, but deeply conservative, not liberal.
Mr. Ciucă practically confirms that PNL is no longer a liberal party, but is competing with PSD, which also lacks anything social democratic apart from populism, targeting the conservative electorate. AUR also targets this electorate, but with an anti-European and sovereignist approach, with "Dacian" touches.
Mr. Ciucă's campaign was launched so quickly to benefit, as mentioned, from the mobilization of mayors for the local elections, but also as a message of independence for PNL in relation to PSD.
For the liberals, the melting together on lists and in candidacies not only with PSD, but also dominated by PSD, as was the case with the two coalition governments, was extremely problematic electorally and cost them good percentages.
By announcing his candidacy for the presidency, Mr. Ciucă attempts a return to his own identity for PNL and to dispel the fear of aligning behind PSD in the September election (or whenever the presidential election will ultimately take place).
One person missing from this presidential campaign is Marcel Ciolacu. While the Prime Minister is in a sort of continuous campaign since taking office, his messages do not indicate a clear decision to run, not even an intention. He lacks street visibility, videos, and messages that cannot be associated with his current position and the desire to maintain it even after the elections.
It is quite evident that Mr. Ciolacu is not eager to run. And he has every reason to doubt. Mircea Geoană will significantly erode his electoral base, which a normal PSD president could have relied on, and in the second round, he faces the eternal PSD story in presidential elections: they have no more votes to capture against the anti-PSD camp.
A joint candidacy of PSD-PNL was not only difficult to obtain, but as already seen in Bucharest, it didn't help much because the liberal core cannot be forced to vote for a Social Democrat.
And Mr. Ciolacu is well aware of the fate of PSD presidents who lose elections. The question is how he will escape the pressure from the party pushing him to run.
If the joint candidate experiment in Bucharest wasn't a fiasco, he could have hoped to repeat it in the presidential elections. However, now it will be very difficult for him to revitalize it. Not even the anticipated entry of AUR and George Simion helps.
Therefore, in broad strokes, the start of the presidential race is outlined. The remaining question is whether and how Marcel Ciolacu will manage to avoid the Russian roulette of the presidential elections after the party has put the gun on the table.