Moving the presidential elections to September is a surprise in the formula of the independent ballot, but the idea is not new at all, it was discussed last year, but in the form of merging with the local ones. This is the reason why the UDMR submitted a draft law to the Parliament with the amendments that would allow this option.
We have already talked about the reasons for this change. In short:
1. The interest of Klaus Iohannis to be able to resign so that he can take over the new protocol that he longs for. And the announcement regarding the candidacy for the headship of NATO, which came only one day after the announcement of the presidential election, shows how desperate he is to find a new place to climb.
2. The rapid use by the PSD and the PNL of the winner's bonus, certainly, from the European Parliament.
3. A newly elected president, with the related legitimacy, to ask the electorate for a parliament with which he can implement his electoral plans for which he was, wasn't he, elected. And all the other parties should enter the parliamentary elections with the mentality and image of defeat in the presidential elections.
In order to really capitalize on points 2 and 3, it is necessary to have:
a. A joint PSD-PNL candidate. If there will be no common candidate and only one of the parties will give the president, the defeated party in the presidential election will enter the parliament like a lamb to the slaughter.
Not that this necessarily bothers the victor, there is no love, mercy and empathy in the political struggle. But in order to govern together in the future, which they obviously want because they have no other options (especially PSD), PSD and PNL must get a score as close as possible to 50%.
If one of them collapses, it also endangers the situation of the other, at least until the AUR and SOS parliamentarians, like those of the PPDD in their time, can be bought piecemeal.
b. Joint lists in parliamentary elections as well. A newly elected president following a joint candidacy cannot ask for parliamentary votes for only one of the components.
Do you remember how annoying it was when Nicușor Dan, common candidate for PMB, chose to support only one of the formations that supported him in the parliamentary elections? And it had no major electoral effect either.
So the centerpiece of the plan for the fall-winter wave of the 2024 election year is the presidential candidate.
At first glance, given that the PNL appears to have been saved at the June merger (at the cost of losing its identity, of course), it would be expected that, instead, the PSD would receive the presidential candidacy. And as the social-democratic tradition is for the party president to run, the joint candidate should be Marcel Ciolacu.
The PNL claims, led by Nicolae Ciucă, that it will not give up the presidential candidacy and the PNL has not yet given its formal consent to advance the presidential elections, but considering at least the interest of Klaus Iohannis (point 1), under whose patronage the decisions were made in the coalition, it is hard to believe, almost impossible, that the PNL will resist. He just reversed the decision "by ourselves" from Sinaia.
In addition, Marcel Ciolacu wanted to point out that he will issue the legislation necessary for the organization of the elections only on the entire agreed calendar, June-December. In other words, the advance of the elections falls, the merging also falls, and the joint lists.
So, theoretically, Marcel Ciolacu from the joint candidate position would have the necessary votes to bring the presidency of Romania to the PSD for the first time in the last 20 years. Basically, the electoral game is much more than pure arithmetic.
Regardless of which of the two party presidents becomes the joint candidate of the two parties, he will face the adversity of a significant part of the electorate of the other party.
Non-public polls show that Nicolae Ciucă would be rejected by a third of the PSD electorate, who would mostly migrate to AUR or Mircea Geoană. And Marcel Ciolacu would be rejected by two-thirds of the PNL electorate who could still go to Mircea Geoană, to ADU or stay at home.
Sure, it would be a tandem where the other party president would be prime minister, but that's a consolation position, in which at least the liberals have no reason to even believe.
After they will have installed their president in Cotroceni and will make another majority with the UDMR and the independents bought piecemeal from the sovereignists, why wouldn't PSD claim the head of the Government?
In addition, in the second round, how will Marcel Ciolacu in particular manage to get out of the electoral pool that took him there? With the scarecrow of extremism? Very likely not to hold because:
- There is no guarantee that George Simion will be the candidate of the populist bloc and not another charismatic character, with the ability to gather all the votes from the anti-system area. The latest polls show that George Simion is trending down.
-There is no guarantee that the diminishing tactics of June 9 will not carve the populists' score to a level where George Simion will be challenged and internal fights will begin, with a major impact on the chances of a coherent presidential strategy.
- Mircea Geoană remains an unknown with the potential to overturn theoretical calculations. Non-public polls from November show him with a score double that of Marcel Ciolacu and almost double the combined scores of the two PNL and PSD presidents.
So even if one of the parties gives in, it does not mean that the electorate will follow it. On the contrary, the data shows that the bill will not pass.
Under these conditions, a Marcel Ciolacu candidacy, even a PSD-PNL joint one, would be extremely risky.
So now what?
For an effective joint candidacy, the only logical solution would be what they are already testing at the European Parliament, what they are also looking for for the Capital City Hall: an independent, in the sense of not belonging to a political party. It is what 70% of the electorate wants according to polls, after the disaster of Iohannis' 10-year mandate.
That is, he should not be a PSD-ist or a PNL-ist, let alone a party leader, not to antagonize any electoral pool and be able to go out in the second round to get other votes.
And once he arrived in Cotroceni, being without leverage in any of the parties, strictly reduced to constitutional prerogatives, let him have only a decorative role in the window at the Palace. It would certainly be an emptying of real content from the highest dignity in the state, but what you can't conquer, you deride.
Who could be the common independent candidate is hard to say, constant measurements are being made. It is probably necessary to be a PSD-ist at heart, the minimum condition that Marcel Ciolacu often spoke of. It is quite clear who is extremely difficult, almost impossible, to be: Mircea Geoană, for whom PSD has strong resentment.