Nicușor Dan no longer has any plan. If his press statement is reviewed now, five days after it was made, the helplessness and disappointment of the president in the face of the prolonged political crisis cannot be avoided.
„I’ll say it directly, I’ve seen a lot of electoral concern in parties and much less concern for national interest. Even a party leader told me privately: ‘This Romania issue is your problem, the party is my problem.’ And it’s not right, because our profession and the fact that we live off people’s money mean that we need to reach a compromise, so that we can negotiate the problems or, well, the aspirations, if they are different, of the social and professional categories in our country,” stated the head of state on September 17.
PSD propaganda quickly claimed that Dominic Fritz had declared what the President of Romania revealed, but anyone who has followed the public appearances of political leaders in recent years easily notices that this way of posing the issue is typical for social democrats. The arrogance of the party-state occasionally comes to the surface.
The fact that Grindeanu's people quickly tried to shift the focus away from that statement also indicates that the leader of PSD does not know if he was recorded or not, if Nicușor Dan, at some point, when he deems it appropriate, will not announce the source from which he quoted.
Unknown Territory
After five months of crisis, the president is so politically weakened that he no longer controls the game. Not even Grindeanu controls him. So the appointment of Siegfried Mureșan was made without a strategy, without a plan from the president. Just a new attempt.
It is true that many believe that "everything is arranged," that after Siegfried Mureșan's rejection, Nicușor Dan will come and appoint Sorin Grindeanu or a surrogate of his.
But what leverage does the President of Romania have now to form a majority? If he had them, why hasn't he achieved it so far?
There are many opinions about the fact that, after Siegfried Mureșan does not pass through Parliament, the next designation, whatever it may be, will be accepted by the deputies and senators.
"George Simion wants early elections," stated Sorin Grindeanu, narrating about the conclusion of one of his meetings with the AUR leader on Antena3.
PNL and USR have officially decided not to vote for a PSD government, so it can be said that Romania has entered unknown territory and that if Siegfried Mureșan does not obtain 233 votes in Parliament, the political deadlock will be difficult to resolve without early parliamentary elections.
A PSD-AUR government, in the current internal and international political context, means isolation, national bankruptcy, and an economic catastrophe.
And Nicușor Dan knows this and feels it firsthand more than anyone in his journey to the USA, where no one pays attention to him, having a meeting schedule at the level of a simple diplomat, not a head of state.
His policy towards the USA has been as bankrupt as his domestic one, his only salvation remaining in Europe, with which he has made sure to have an increasingly strange connection.
Revival of Extremists
In this fragile and tense context, more dramatic than the president's situation is that of Sorin Grindeanu. He knows that he can no longer bring his party back to power, whether Siegfried Mureșan passes or fails in Parliament.
In the best case scenario, a new designation made by the president will be that of a technocrat, in a situation where he will make another attempt to avoid early elections.
There is much discussion about the fact that the arrest of Călin Georgescu means a blow to AUR, an attempt to "tame" the formation to vote for what the president wants, but at least for now, if we look at George Simion's reactions, of AUR parliamentarians, of Georgescu's supporters, the arrest has rather led to a revival of extremists, not a deterioration of their influence.
In these days, negotiations are ongoing and no political actor knows where it will end: if a government will be formed or not, if we will have early elections or the suspension of the president. Not even Nicușor Dan knows. Let's not forget that he is the head of state for whom nothing has worked out, at least so far, although he promised a lot. He chose "stability," not reform. We have neither.