At the beginning of 2024, when the numbers from sociological studies already showed that Marcel Ciolacu, the prime minister and leader of the social democrats at the time, did not enjoy much public support, he stated that he would not run for the presidency of Romania.
He repeated the announcement for more than half a year, maintaining it even after the local and European parliamentary elections, where PSD and PNL had associated and ran on common lists.
We remember well that the attempt to support a common candidate for the Mayor of Bucharest ended in a major fiasco, the coalition around Dr. Cătălin Cîrstoiu collapsing noisily.
Marcel Ciolacu, from the position of prime minister, kept borrowing money by increasing the salaries of public sector employees and pensions, hoping to create a critical mass of supporters that would propel him into the presidential final.
Back then, as now, there were counselors, opinion poll experts, experienced local elected officials in mobilizing voters, and all kinds of specialists who assured Ciolacu that there was a way for him to reach the Cotroceni Palace.
Looking back, doesn't it make you laugh? But those same specialists, party leaders, and counselors now assured Sorin Grindeanu that the only solution to get out of the lack of trust in which both he and the party find themselves is to bring down Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan.
If the PSD leader managed to turn the Prime Minister into a negative character, responsible for all the current problems of the Romanians, this would have meant an open path to taking control of the PNL, as well as the presidency of Romania.
The Same Strategy in New Times
Suddenly, PSD returned to its past glory and power, becoming the only alternative to the AUR extremism, of course, with a liberal trinket at its belt.
For over three decades, the social democrats have been applying such a strategy. In a few months after the 1996 elections, they destroyed Prime Minister Victor Ciorbea, seen at the time as a reformer, and derailed the CDR and the presidency of Emil Constantinescu.
It is unknown how easy it would be for a technocrat, especially one coming from the outside, to quickly get involved in issues... You need a certain credibility, to know and be known. Otherwise, you talk in vain, in a desert. Towards the end of my term, I was talking there, alone. I was left with President Emil Constantinescu... And I was counting like a prisoner how many days I had left until I leave the Victoria Palace...
Mugur Isărescu, BNR Governor, about his time as technocrat Prime Minister in 2000
The Ion Iliescu, Năstase, and Ponta party did the same with Traian Băsescu, although the success was dubious, as the former president won several battles against an unleashed PSD-PNL alliance.
The strategy has not changed. The social democrats then waged an endless political war with Iohannis, destroying the technocrat government of Cioloș. The immediate effect: Liviu Dragnea won the 2016 elections with a historic score.
Different times, different situations, the social democrats apply the same strategy - demonizing the opponent with the help of the media they control.
What has changed? One thing - the people. Over time, those who survived have grown tired of the PSD, realizing they are caught in a trap, on one hand, while on the other hand, new generations have come, raised and shaped in different times, with many more opportunities and resources.
Now, Sorin Grindeanu has been assured that Bolojan has been brought, through negative communication campaigns, into the "negative character" zone, guilty of all recent problems – high taxes, high prices.
And who doesn't want to get rid of a "negative character"? Those who followed the sequence of events cannot help but be intrigued by the fact that shortly after the vote on the no-confidence motion, which confirmed the dismissal of the Bolojan Government, a PNL leader, Cătălin Predoiu, issued the message: The Liberals must remain in government.
The President's Nationalism
Unfortunately, President Nicușor Dan also fell into the PSD trap, hoping that without Ilie Bolojan as prime minister, he could more easily achieve a coalition of pro-Western parties that he could control, thus becoming the main political figure in the country.
According to data published by CURS, a public opinion polling agency controlled by PSD, there are three major political figures at the moment - Nicușor Dan, Ilie Bolojan, and George Simion. With all the goodwill and subjectivity of those who published the study, Sorin Grindeanu is among others.
Thus, the plan derailed for two main reasons:
- The hatred towards PSD manifested at the societal level after Marcel Ciolacu's governance failure.
- The ambiguous messages sent by the President of Romania, signaling to AUR both regarding the extremism law, and by repeatedly validating the nationalist and populist discourse.
"Currently, we have, somehow, in surveys, a sympathy for AUR around 40%. But many of the attributes of this category of people are not worrying at all," stated the President of Romania, in a TV show in mid-December last year.
"That is, being a nationalist is not a matter, how should I say, it's an absolutely legitimate thing. Wanting to preserve traditions or something like that is legitimate. Questioning certain functioning of the European Union is legitimate, and certain ways of making decisions are legitimate...," he also said at that time.
This position was criticized by many of his voters, who felt somewhat betrayed by the political beliefs of the President, closer to George Simion's party than to USR and the liberals.
Thus, the wave was created that Ilie Bolojan climbed, blowing up the strategies conceived in the laboratory.
The Swan Song
At this moment, like Viorica Dăncilă and Marcel Ciolacu, Grindeanu has become entangled. From behind, the party, through Lia Olguța Vasilescu's voice, pushes him to become prime minister and form a minority government, while in front, PNL asks him the same thing since he left the coalition.
"The National Liberal Party asks PSD to take responsibility for the political crisis in which it has put the country by submitting a concrete proposal for prime minister from among its own members," stated an official communication from the party.
"In the conditions in which PSD is unable to offer such a variant, we ask PSD to publicly acknowledge its inability to govern the country and to provide the necessary space for the formation of a democratic, pro-European, and non-PSD government," the PNL leadership specified.
The pressure exerted by the liberals, combined with the position of Mugur Isărescu, the BNR Governor, who criticized the perspective of a technocrat prime minister supported by Nicușor Dan, as well as that coming from Lia Olguța Vasilescu, the most influential person in the PSD at the moment, leaves no room for maneuver for Sorin Grindeanu.
He is pressured to try to form a majority to support a PSD minority government.
Although the plan was different, reality forces Sorin Grindeanu to take on the leadership of the country in extremely difficult conditions for Romania, without any support from former partner formations or public opinion.
Will it be the swan song of the PSD?