Leader of Romanian Liberal Party resigns after six months in office

Florin Cîțu, the leader of Romania’s junior ruling Liberal Party (PNL), former prime minister and former minister of finance, resigned from his post on April 2, knowing that he would have been dismissed a day later otherwise.

“It was an exit of absolute elegance,” his colleague Rareș Bogdan - among his most vocal supporters six months earlier - explained.

The PNL leadership on April 3 summoned for April 10 a congress to elect a new leader. Cîțu’s gesture comes too late to have any political implications.

During his six-month mandate, he never actually led the party. “Yes, it is true; I have never been comfortable with this compromise with the Social Democrats,” he said during the press conference following his resignation, Adevarulreported.

President Klaus Iohannis appointed him at the top of PNL in August, replaced him as prime minister with Nicolae Ciuca in November and finally dictated what nobody imagined: a coalition with the “evil” PSD.

Florin Cîțu has accepted for four months, mumbling now and then, the marriage “arranged” by president Iohannis between the two parties that proved once again to operate based on the same principles.

President Iohannis hasn’t attended the brief meeting summoned in vain by once his protegee Florin Cîțu on a sunny afternoon of April. Neither his colleagues gave him the chance of the last explanation, a chat, or negotiation about Cîțu’s seat as Senate speaker.

Alone and abandoned like Liviu Dragnea after the final ruling issued by the High Court that sent him to jail in 2019, Florin Cîțu expressed disappointment in front of the journalists.

Unlike Liviu Dragnea, however, Florin Cîțu hasn’t survived the challenging position of running a party and still not being prime minister. Perhaps because he was never in control of the party.

Some assume (Iulian Anghel writing for Ziarul Financiar) that it was his haughtiness that finally put an end to his career. Perhaps - the haughtiness to presume that he led a party that he never led. In fact, that’s why his resignation has no major political impact.

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