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Beyond the anecdote, these local elections had the answer to two big questions, decisive for the parliamentary elections on December 6. First: does the “Dragnea effect” still persist in the Romanian electorate, that is, the instinctive rejection of the PSD as a toxic party for the rule of law, in those places where the vote cannot be controlled by territorial networks of clients? The effect was created in nearly three years of street demonstrations against authoritarian and anti-European tendencies that were beginning to resemble Ceausescu’s sultanism and was decisive in the 2019 election year, both in the European Parliament and in the presidential elections.
Obviously, the PSD leadership team from the post-Dragnea era hoped that this effect had been reabsorbed in the last year since the man disappeared from the scene and the Covid-19 crisis would have moved voters’ attention elsewhere. . That is why he always went with his handkerchief on his tambourine, postponing internal clarifications. It is true that some felt that something was wrong and avoided associating with the party in the campaign (Gabriela Firea, Robert Negoiţă) or threw themselves into other lifeboats (Mihai Chirica). But no one could assess how much the Dragnea effect really mattered.
Yesterday’s vote gave the answer: yes, the dragnea effect still persists – and even stronger than the polls, anticipated the analyzes of Vasile Dâncu or even the most fanatical opponents of the PSD. This is a strong conclusion for December, according to which all parties will calibrate their strategy and message. Of course, the PSD leaders are obliged to remain optimistic and now, paradoxically, they will declare victory, like last night in Bucharest. They will count the total of votes, they will bring errant children like Negoiţă, they will test countertops in the Councils where they find openness and they will count the victorious mayors of communes.
But this does not fool anyone, of course, not even the assets of his own party, who now face the prospect of cutting their seats in politics and administration in half. Your business will be taken with hostility by NLP in many places (eg, Iasi, Constanta, etc.), if you fail to negotiate with the winners the countertops I mentioned above. Their stable strengths have left Oltenia and Muntenia in poverty, but that won’t help them much in December, when votes here will be diluted by the diaspora.. There can be no better illustration for the PSD vote in 2020 than the glorious victory in Deveselu, with 63%, at the hands of a dead mayor. This electoral memorial (real, the townspeople went to the cemetery after the vote to honor the elected) comes almost as a political slogan for the party, in the current phase.
The second decisive question, relevant throughout Europe, is unless the “decade of polarization and outrage” ends in 2020 It began in the great economic crisis of 2008-09, with the “Indignez-vous” manifesto, the Occupy movement, anti-elite populist slogans and then polarization in the mirror of the right: tribalism, nativist politics, cultural-ideological field, effect Trump, Brexit. There are already signs on the continent that anti-European movements are in decline today; the presidential elections in a month will clear things up in the United States as well.
If confirmed, it would mean a return of the electorate to a vote for decency and competition, to the detriment of the identity, loud and populist that has been on the rise for the last ten years. Perhaps the Covid-19 crisis played its part: it scared the world enough to see tribalism, show politics, and gargling against the elite, associated with administrative incompetence, killing people. To this important question for global politics Romania gave an answer yesterday: by competition, in a centrist and clearly pro-Western political message, even when the public did not know much about the proposed candidate. Once again, the lessons for December are clear.
The first beneficiaries of this trend are, of course, those of USR-Plus: several large municipalities have won spectacularly, against forecasts and with greater differences than expected. Errors and clumsiness in some places no longer mattered, covered by the political vote for change. Where they came second or third, they will send enough people to the Councils to have a critical mass of politically educated members. More importantly, they won the toughest choices for them: locals, where the diaspora or the majority of students in university centers do not vote, without a residence visa. In the end, it was they who benefited from the postponement of the local elections from June to September: their new local elected officials didn’t have time to make big mistakes until December 6, and the wind of change was blowing in their sails. With the diaspora and the students, PNL will have a difficult life in the parliament of Sibiu, Iasi, Constanta or other places where it has now done relatively well.
Basescu came out of expectations, which in a month took his party out of the margin of error to 7% and put it in the CGMB. What he could not do when negotiating with others he did on his own; Nicusor Dan may need a PMP for a stable majority on the General Council. It was a risky game for the right wing, to which the bullet launched from the Russian roulette of Băsescu happened: it really took votes from Nicuşor Dan and, above all, from NLP. The luck of all was that in Bucharest the silent majority, undetected by the polls, belonged to Nicusor, not Gabriela Firea. Obviously, you don’t get the impression that Băsescu will be inactive on December 6, do you?
The PNL emerges from these local elections as the most heterogeneous and federalized party that Romania has had. First of all, it is to Ludovic Orban’s credit that he agreed to do the right thing in Bucharest, unlike his predecessors in the 2016 fiasco, because, as then, the Capital sets the tone for the next MPs. Without the prime minister’s decision, the coalition would not have formed behind Nicusor, just as without the graceful step behind Vlad Voiculescu there would have been big problems afterwards. Fortunately, reason prevailed everywhere and the “Budapest model” of pro-Western electoral alliance for mayor could be applied to us (as recommended by EFOR here earlier in the year, in general skepticism, and as subsequently lobbied at all times).
On the other hand, there can be no greater difference within a party than what we see today between the NLP Bucharest organization, for example, and others in the country, which bring a large amount of unreformed PSD. For the first, the illustrative character is Ciprian Ciucu, the new mayor of Sector 6, “NGO sorosista” as Antenele would say, for which many voted, perhaps believing that he is a member of the USR: difference beyond expectations. For the rest, we have the exhibitions Robu (Timişoara) or Scripcaru (Braşov), expired penalized by the new trend; the notorious case of route-blatism in Iaşi; or other old-fashioned barons dotted around the counties.
Yes, the PNL won many Provincial Councils, but also because in some places it had coalitions like in Bucharest with USR-Plus, which instead preferred the office of the mayor of the municipality of residence (like in Bacău). On December 6 it will be played differently, with knives on the table. Ludovic Orban will have a difficult mission in the elaboration of the lists for the Parliament, because the trackers, beizadels and heirs of the party, like those persecuted today by Valeriu Nicolae for false resumes, will be a favorite subject in the campaign that begins.
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