Former Romanian PM’s new party - between opposition’s discontent and people’s interest

While thousands of people have already shown interest in the new political party announced at the end of last week by former Romanian prime minister Dacian Ciolos, the biggest opposition party is not very happy with the new political player, as it believes it breaks the opposition. The new political party, named Miscarea Romania Impreuna – RO+ (The Romania Together Movement), was announced last Friday, March 30. By Monday morning, April 2, some 32,000 people registered as supporters, with 20,000 wanting to become members, Vlad Voiculescu, the former health minister in the government led by Dacian Ciolos and a founding member of RO+, announced on Facebook. However, the biggest opposition party in Romania, namely the National Liberal Party (PNL), criticized the new political player, as it believes that RO+ will only break the opposition even more. “Any new political formula outside the PNL does nothing else but help fragment the opposition. I expect to see something other than big words from Mr. Ciolos,” said Alina Gorghiu, the former president of PNL, according to local Digi24. Romanian political analyst Andrei Taranu considers that the liberals have reasons to be upset, because Dacian Ciolos’ new political party will take votes from them. On the other hand, the much smaller opposition party Save Romania Union (USR) is not against the new party. In a Facebook post, USR president Dan Barna said that “valuable people represent the only chance for decent politics in Romania”, and wished success to the colleagues from Miscarea Romania Impreuna. He also said that the two parties could work together. Meanwhile, a local civic platform called Impreuna Platform accused Miscarea Romania Impreuna of plagiarism. Its representatives said the new political party tries to “confiscate” their name, local News.ro reported. They noted “both the acute lack of political imagination of the founders of a party that confiscates our name Impreuna, and a chronic lack of popular legitimacy if one needs to confiscate the name of the biggest civic initiative in Romania to set up a party." The Impreuna Platform, which was launched last fall and has over 1,000 members, would thus want the new political party to change its name. Although the new party’s ideology is not clear just yet, Miscarea Romania Impreuna – RO+ will be present at the future elections, its founders announced. Besides the elections for the European Parliament, Romania will also organize presidential elections next year.