Romania’s biggest opposition party elects new leadership in online congress

Romania’s biggest opposition party – the Social Democratic Party (PSD) – elected its new leadership in an online congress on Saturday, August 22.

Marcel Ciolacu, the party’s interim president, was elected for a full mandate. He got over 1,300 votes from the party’s delegates. Meanwhile, his opponent, former finance minister Eugen Teodorovici, received only 91 votes, according to Mediafax.

Ciolacu’s team was also validated for the other key positions in the party’s leadership. Former prime minister Sorin Grindeanu and Bucharest mayor Gabriela Firea are the party’s first vice presidents. Paul Stanescu, a former deputy prime minister, is the party’s secretary general.

Ciolacu’s team includes other former members of PSD’s leadership such as Vasile Dancu, Lia Olguta Vasilescu, Claudiu Manda, and former prime minister Mihai Tudose.

However, Ciolacu emphasized in his speech that he wanted to break with the past, referring to the party’s former leaders who tried to “use PSD as a key to the doors of justice,” Mediafax reported. He also said that the PSD should become a modern party to meet the Romanians’ new expectations as society has changed.

“There have been cases in which your work has been wasted by those who thought they could use PSD as a key to the doors of justice. They are not PSD! They belong to the past. And we must break with this past! Justice must be done in the courtroom,” Ciolacu told his party members.

Former PSD leader Liviu Dragnea, who led the party to the victory in the parliamentary elections in December 2016, tried to change the laws of justice and launched many attacks on the prosecutors. He was eventually sent to jail for corruption in May 2019 just days after PSD lost the elections for the European Parliament.

Former prime minister Viorica Dancila took over the party’s helm but stepped down after she lost the presidential elections in November 2019 and PSD was removed from power being replaced by Marcel Ciolacu as interim leader. Ciolacu removed all those who continued to support Dragnea’s agenda from the party’s leadership.

(Photo source: Facebook/Marcel Ciolacu)