Former Romanian PM Ciolos elected president of newly-formed party

Romania’s former technocrat prime minister Dacian Ciolos was voted president of PLUS party by 99.17% of the party’s delegates to the party’s congress on January 26. Few days before, Adrian Iordache, one of the three young lawyers who set up the party on behalf of Ciolos, resigned. He was publicly blamed for his father (and founder of the law house that hired him) being an officer of the former communist intelligence services (Securitate). The public comments about the way PLUS was set up created anxiety among the party's potential political ally, the Save Romania Union: nearly half of the USR members voted recently against a political alliance with PLUS into a more significant opposition entity. It remains to be seen whether Iordache’s resignation will change radically the negative sentiment. USR’s president Dan Barna said on Sunday, January 27, that his party might well support Ciolos as a presidential candidate if USR and PLUS formed a political alliance. But if the two fail to reach such an alliance, USR will have its own candidate. Romania’s former technocrat PM Dacian Ciolos will run in the next EP elections editor@romania-insider.com (photo source: Facebook / PLUS)