Ilie Bolojan said that in the past there were many moments when he did not agree with the decisions made at the party leadership level, but he respected them because he is a person who respects the rules. He also said that once you enter a party, you have to assume that the leaders will make decisions that will not always be pleasing to all members of the party.
The prime minister ousted by a vote of no confidence spoke about this in an interview broadcast by TVR 1 on June 30, conducted by Loara Ștefănescu.
Bolojan’s statement was a reference to the period when Klaus Iohannis „kept him in Oradea,” even though his popularity was rising after his achievements as mayor. He could have been a leader who could win elections, compared to the disastrous leadership of General Ciucă.
Another PNL mayor that Iohannis did not want to hear about was Emil Boc from Cluj.
The former president of Romania, himself a successful former mayor of Sibiu, saw the two of them as competitors with a chance to take over the leadership of PNL. In addition, he could not allow them to appear in public because it would also put General Ciucă at a disadvantage.
Iohannis was a president who controlled PNL with an iron fist until the elections at the end of 2024.
For those who have forgotten, it is worth mentioning that in his first term as president, Iohannis and PNL fought tooth and nail against PSD led by Liviu Dragnea and ultimately won, with the social-democratic leader ending up in prison for corruption.
Then, in his second term, the same Iohannis brought PSD, led by Marcel Ciolacu, a weak and subservient leader, into government, despite the 2020 vote when the liberals were supported for what was called "de-PSD-ization of Romania."
Thuma and the Animals from Ilfov
Today's PNL coup group is made up of two factions - those who entered Parliament and received positions in the party during the 2012-2016 period, in the first USL, launched by Dan Voiculescu and managed by the duo Victor Ponta - Crin Antonescu.
A representative of this group is Deputy Ionuț Stroe, and the second group is made up of "Iohannis' people" - Thuma, Rareș Bogdan, Alina Gorghiu, and others.
The core of the coup group, numbering between 15 and 30 more or less visible parliamentarians, around whom also gravitate a number of opportunists, as well as four, five county branches, aims to replace Ilie Bolojan from the position of party president and seek a new alliance with PSD to achieve a majority by 2028, when parliamentary elections will take place.
If you listen to some of them, they claim that they could absorb PSD into PNL because the social democrats have lost public support and it is hard to imagine they will ever return to the glory days of the 1990s.
"When President Hubert came to Ilfov County Council in 2020, there was no concept of animal protection. The former president, now brought back into the spotlight by Mr. Bolojan (Marian Petrache - editor's note), used the word 'dog' in a pejorative sense. Private dog catchers were plantation bosses. Collaborations between Ilfov County Council and NGOs? Not even in dreams…," wrote Hilde Tudora, a former journalist, now an animal rights activist and employee at Ilfov County Council, on her Facebook page.
Hilde's text, which garnered over 1,200 reactions, is candid, and Hubert Thuma is seen as a different kind of politician. His major problem is different - he oversees the most corrupt local liberal branch, the one in Ilfov, where, under the protection of PNL mayors, a series of lucrative and illegal activities take place - trafficking in land, waste, drugs, and human flesh.
The Brotherhood in the County
Bucharest is surrounded by this ring of criminal groups from Ilfov that receive political protection from Thuma's liberals, as well as from the judiciary.
The association between Mircea Minea (PNL), the mayor of Chiajna commune, Ilfov, and Judge Lia Savonea is well known, with dozens of articles in the press about corruption in the locality.
Hubert Thuma's problem with Bolojan is that the latter, through the rules and criteria he wants to impose in the party to reduce corruption, will disrupt the "businesses in Ilfov County."
Ilie Bolojan, about the PNL coup group, TVR 1 interview
...when a party repeatedly makes decisions in a certain direction, they must be respected. In cases where they are not respected, those who do so obviously assume the risks involved. It takes at least a certain decency and a step to the side if you disagree, and if things continue, it is clear that the necessary measures will be taken...
Lia Savonea has the same problem with Ilie Bolojan.
Furious that the liberal prime minister somehow managed to reduce some of the magistrates' privileges, together with the judiciary group she leads, they aim to destroy the PNL leader.
For those wondering what the coup group was doing at the Ilfov Tribunal and why they were welcomed with open arms, the answer lies above: in this toxic tangle between the criminal groups in the county, the PNL mayors, and the judiciary group led by Lia Savonea, who, of course, resides in Chiajna commune.
A Presidential Formation
PNL is a party as corrupt as PSD, the only difference between the two formations being that the former managed to change its leadership and brought to the fore a successful mayor from northern Romania, while the social democrats continued with Marcel Ciolacu's line, placing Grindeanu at the helm, a leader as compromised and corrupt as his former political boss.
The coup group will not succeed in removing Bolojan from the party leadership, and most likely, they will leave to establish a new political formation - conservative-liberal, as they call it, whatever that may mean.
Their main problem is that they lack a leader, and an association with PSD is electorally toxic. Some of them dream of building a presidential formation, forgetting that Nicușor Dan never managed to lead a party.
The PNL coup group has a way to launch a political movement together with the second line of PSD, but their major issue is the one haunting them now: the fear of corruption they have managed over the past decade, while Iohannis played golf and skied.