Some 40,000 people expected at rally of Romania’s ruling party PSD in Iasi

The ruling party PSD (the Social Democratic Party) will organize today, May 9, a rally in the eastern Romania city of Iasi, hoping to bring some 40,000 party supporters and members to the city’s Unirii Square. Party leader Liviu Dragnea will attend the rally but prime minister Viorica Dancila will not be present, according to the local media.

The rally will block the central area of the city, hundreds of buses from the region of Moldova being expected to arrive in Iasi today, local Adevarul reported.

The organization of the PSD rally in Iasi on May 9 – the Europe Day and the day when the EU summit in Sibiu takes places, has been criticized by the opposition and by several civic NGOs. For example, two civic associations sent a letter to Liviu Dragnea on Tuesday, May 7, in which they urged him to cancel the rally scheduled for May 9, arguing that the organization of a party event on Europe Day damages the image of Iasi and the region of Moldova.

Meanwhile, people have been gathering on social media to organize anti-PSD protests in Iasi at the same time with the Social Democrats’ rally. By Wednesday afternoon, over 9,000 people announced they would come to Unirii Square to protest against the PSD leader, according to Adevarul. And, although the head of the Iasi branch of opposition party PNL (the National Liberal Party) said that PNL was not involved in organizing the anti-Dragnea protests on Thursday, Liviu Dragnea warned the Liberals that he could also leave “angry people” from PSD to organize a counter-demonstration on the day of the upcoming PNL rally in Iasi, to which president Klaus Iohannis is also invited.

Liviu Dragnea announced the May 9 rally in Iasi at the end of April, a few days after he attended a conference of the PSD county branch in Iasi. A few hundred people staged a protest against PSD and Dragnea during the conference. G4media.ro reported that, when Dragnea left the event, the organizers brought a brass brand to play there, hoping the music will cover the voices of the anti-PSD protesters.

About a year ago, PSD and its junior coalition partner ALDE organized in Bucharest a large rally with about 150,000 participants. They said at that time that the demonstration was organized to protest against the so-called shadow state and the abuses in justice.