After the undeniable success on November 24, USR and its candidate are experiencing the exact opposite of the phenomenon from the canceled presidential elections. If back then, Ms. Lasconi benefited from a major extension of the electoral base in the name of strategic voting, this time she finds herself in a situation of contraction due to sharing the path with Nicușor Dan.
I specify from the start that I did not vote for Ms. Lasconi on November 24; my choice for the first round was public from the beginning of the electoral campaign and has not changed. I was going to vote for her on December 8, but in entirely exceptional circumstances.
She did not convince me last year that she had the necessary vision to be president. Of course, in the upcoming campaign, she has the opportunity to change this perception.
But, even so, in political terms, what she and USR are experiencing from Nicușor Dan is genuine blackmail: „if you don’t step aside for me to take your place, we both lose, but I risk nothing, I remain at the city hall, while you politically pay a high price for a poor score.”
Why he does this is very difficult to understand in a minimal honest political logic, a word with which Mr. Nicușor Dan likes to associate himself.
Just 8 months ago, Nicușor Dan won a new term in Bucharest with the promise that from now on he would truly deliver results to the Bucharesters and firmly denied any intention of running for president. He then organized a referendum to grant him increased powers in the capital. He abandons all of these and suddenly aims for Cotroceni.
Elena Lasconi, who should step aside, right?, received 1.7 million votes on November 24. Mr. Dan received 300,000 votes on June 9. Both of them had a significant percentage of strategic votes in these votes, capitalized not for their qualities, but out of fear from opponents, George Simion in Ms. Lasconi’s case, Gabriela Firea and Cristian Popescu Piedone in Mr. Nicușor Dan’s case.
If in Ms. Lasconi’s case the votes are at a national level, in Mr. Nicușor Dan’s case, they are exclusively in Bucharest. Why should Ms. Lasconi step aside?
Mr. Nicușor Dan relies on two essential arguments in his favor: competence and honesty. Since competence does not refer only to mathematics, and honesty is not limited to the criminal issue, it is worth analyzing to what extent his actions and statements support these arguments.
A few aspects:
1. In this second term of Mr. Nicușor Dan, in the General Council of the Capital, we have a majority of PSD-PNL-PUSL, with USR in Opposition. If in Bucharest, with the mayor’s powers, much greater in relation to the city than the president’s powers are to the country, Mr. Dan has not succeeded in successfully engaging in negotiating a majority that would exclude at least the most toxic components, what is his negotiation ability?
Why would he do better with a reformist majority at the national level, where the stakes are incomparably higher? Or did he not get involved, which means he is satisfied with this majority, so I don’t see what reformist expectations he could meet.
2. If Mr. Dan were to go to Cotroceni, until the next elections, the position of general mayor would be held by Adrian Vigheciu from PSD.
Mr. Nicușor Dan argues that he is not abandoning Bucharest to the real estate mafia because, if he becomes president, they will no longer have power, and his fight will no longer be necessary. What does the President of Romania have to do with the functioning of all institutions involved in construction?
Once again, the image of the president with total powers is projected, which is completely false according to the Constitution.
3. A central element of Mr. Nicușor Dan’s offer is anticorruption. He wants to relaunch it through three completely wrong methods, according to the explanations given on Antena3.
„We do not have a real Judicial Inspection that could separate those few magistrates whom all lawyers know are mishandling cases and making only mistakes, on the one hand, and on the other hand, the justice system is not efficient enough from a managerial point of view,” says Mr. Dan.
The Judicial Inspection does not separate anything. It is an institution that only investigates disciplinary offenses, not the substance of the decision made, and sends the magistrate to the CSM judgment. CSM applies the sanction or acquittal, and the dissatisfied party goes to the High Court of Cassation and Justice for the final verdict. „Mishandling” is the criminal act investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office and triggers criminal liability, not disciplinary.
„The President is part of the CSM, which can influence the strategies that the prosecutors have, appoints the heads of the prosecutor’s offices, and in this way has a say in what the Prosecutor’s Office will do in the future,” says Nicușor Dan.
Wrong! The President is not part of the CSM, he can only preside over the CSM meetings he attends, precisely that part of the meetings where discussions take place, speeches are given, encouragements, etc. After that, the President stands up and leaves, and the CSM members start making decisions by voting. Similarly, the President can preside over Government meetings without being part of the Government and without participating in decisions.
Since he is not part of the CSM, the President cannot influence the management of the judicial system or the strategies of the prosecutor’s offices. Nor should he, because no one should have the right to give orders to prosecutors. The appointment of the heads of prosecutor’s offices is based on the proposals of the Minister of Justice, which the President can accept or reject.
These are just a few of the glaring mistakes made by Mr. Dan on this key aspect of his offer. If he doesn’t know, where is his competence? If he knows but misleads people, where is his honesty?
As I mentioned, Nicușor Dan twists USR’s arm. It’s the party he founded and then left, by resignation, because he was not satisfied with the result of an internal referendum regarding the referendum for the traditional family.
USR is the party that made him mayor in 2020 when, without USR’s support, he would not have been able to defeat Gabriela Firea. It is the party that supported him last year, in local elections and then in the referendum (for what purpose?).
But this is not the first time Nicușor Dan pushes USR, even if this time it didn’t work out as well as the first time.
In 2020, Nicușor Dan and Vlad Voiculescu were fighting in USR-Plus for the candidacy for the Capital. It was a tough battle, neck and neck. In the midst of it, Ludovic Orban announced that Nicușor Dan would be the PNL candidate, and thus USR was forced to accept the joint candidate without settling the internal battle.
As a sign of respect for USR, a few weeks later, at the parliamentary elections, Nicușor Dan officially supported PNL, which was in competition with USR-Plus. Probably this time too, Mr. Dan hoped to become the PNL candidate and thus force USR to support him.
All of the above does not mean that Mr. Nicușor Dan should not be voted for. But the choice must be made with full knowledge, not based on illusions, no matter how tempting they may be.