USR has started a new string of internal choices. The formation will have a new president at the end of the month, although he chose the last one a year ago. However, the situation is not a new one for the political formation founded by the current head of state Nicușor Dan: no party leader had a long term.
USR changes the leader just one year away from the latest photo choices Inquam Photos / George Călin
Between 11 and 13 June 13, the first round of the internal elections in the USR takes place, and the results will be centralized between June 14 and 15. The second round would take place between June 16 and 18, and the election of the new president will be validated at the USR Congress on June 21.
9 candidates were registered and validated for the party’s presidency, including Dominic Fritz, mayor of Timișoara and favorite in the domestic race, and Violeta Alexandru, former deputy and PNL and the strength of the right. Violeta Alexandru was also Minister of Labor and led the PNL Bucharest branch. She left the party at the time of removing Ludovic Orban from the leadership, which he followed in the force of the right.
Among the candidates are Vasile-Gabriel Filip (USR Constanța member), Constantin Gheorghiță (USR Italy), Mihai Mihăilă (USR Bacău), Luiza Elena Oancea (USR UK), Eduard Răducan (USR Argeș), George Ungureanu (USR Tulcea) and Horea Zaha (USR Bihor).
According to the USR status, the president is elected by direct and secret vote, on a secure electronic platform, by all party members, and the congress in which the election is validated once every 4 years. The president of the formation may be in charge of a maximum period of 10 years, when calculating this term, taking into account both the consecutive and unconsessive years in which he held this function.
Dominic Fritz’s contested candidacy
The current ballot inside the USR is not without controversy. If Dominic Fritz will win, the mandate of the future party chief is already threatened. One of the candidates announced to his colleagues that he has challenged the candidacy of the mayor of Timisoara, according to an internal message obtained by “Adevărul”.
Eduard Răducan claims that Dominic Fritz has the obligation to present a document attesting that he has the right to hold a leadership position in a party in Romania, not having citizenship. He invoked the fact that the political formation must ensure that he does not violate the law: “We need a certainty materialized in an assumed and official document ”.
The future president, submitted to compromises
The problem of all the former party chiefs was, according to the political scientist Cristian Pîrvulescu, the ability to obtain a majority in the National Office of the Formation. “Dominic Fritz is obliged to make a series of compromises to become president of the party and will have to find the common denominator. Nothing guarantees that the new president will have a four -year term as the party tensions are imported. Probably the party will reach the governance and this will soften these tendencies of the groups there to break up not to accept a party line ”, emphasizes the politicalologist Cristian Pîrvulescu for “Adevărul”.
Despite the frequent internal choices, the formation is doomed to repeat its history, because, in fact, it cannot be reformed in the true sense of the word and cannot impose candidates at national level in the mayors and councils, the political scientist believes
“It is an atypical party. It is a party that was made up of very different platforms, which were largely excluded from the party, but which initially contributed to this situation.explained Cristian Pîrvulescu, recalling that the group represented by Claudiu Năsui did not easily accept the group from Brussels, the Plus Party, founded and led by former Prime Minister Dacian Cioloș.
Tensioned departures of former USR bosses
The mandates of the former party chiefs were short and sprinkled with scandals, from resignations as a result of poor results to real struggles inside the formation.
Removed by force
Former president of USR Elena Lasconi resigned at the beginning of May, but not before a fierce struggle for power inside the formation. The former party leader was removed after the leaders in the National Bureau decided to support the former founding president Nicușor Dan in the May 2025 presidential race. Lasconi left after losing the presidential elections
But before the failure of May, Lasconi had a series of electoral successes. In June 2024 he obtained the second term at Cîmpulung Muscel City Hall, with a percentage of 69.58%. Also in June 2024, after the resignation of Cătălin Drulă from the position of president of the USR, Lasconi was elected president of the party with a score of 68.14%, obtaining 7,701 out of the 11,333 votes. She won the function after, just 6 months before she was removed from the first place in the MEP list. After the weak result from the MEP, in the ADU alliance, of 8.53 on June 9, the party took 12.25% for the Senate and 12.40% for the Chamber of Deputies, and in the presidential election canceled in 2024 Lasconi ranked second, with 19.17%, ie 1,772.500 votes.
The disastrous results of June 2024
At the management of the USR was also Cătălin Drulă, former Minister of Transport, which the party would propose as a candidate in the elections for the position of mayor of the Capital, left free by Nicușor Dan. Drulă obtained the party presidency, with over 71% of the votes in July 2022.
The former leader then took the party in a losing alliance with the force of the right and PMP, managing to obtain only two mandates in the European Parliament on the list of the Alliance ADU. At the same time, the USR lost several mayors, such as sector 1 in Bucharest, where Clotilde Armand or Brasov City Hall applied, where former mayor Allen Coliban applied. On June 10, 2024, one day after the European and local European elections, he resigned.
Fight with USR’s National Office
Dacian Cioloș came to the USR leadership as a result of the Plus absorption, the party that founded, in the construction that would be called for a short time. He was elected as the sole president of the formation in the Congress of October 2021, with 50.9% of the votes. Following the internal race, Cioloș gave up the position of president of the Europe in the European Parliament. Only a few months later, on February 7, 2022, he would also give up the party leader.
The departure came against the background of the misunderstandings between the party chief and the team from the National Bureau, where more than half of the management positions, ie those occupied by people making the decisions in training, were obtained by Dan Barna’s team. Cioloș failed to impose a program to be voted by the management forum and decided to resign. Moreover, following the congress in which he was chosen, after years in which the USRPLUS or the USRPLUS alliance was called, the formation also voted for the simple “USR”, thus wiping the traces of the former plus.
The internal elections challenged after the resignation of Nicușor Dan
The only term of about 4 years in the management of USR was owned by Dan Barna, from 2017 to 2021. However, his mandate was divided. It was restored in 2019, with a score of 65.75%. The first term obtained in October 2017, but his choice was challenged by 11 members from that time, supporters of the former president of the Nicușor Dan. Then he received 127 votes out of 276, the way of choosing the president of the formation being initially similar to that of other parties, that is, with the vote of the delegates chosen by the branches.
Then USR organized the second congress in the history of the party only 6 months away from the first congress. The resignation president at that time, Nicușor Dan, criticized the way of the elections.
The founder and the first president of the USR, the current head of state Nicuşor Dan, resigned from office and left the party in June 2017, against the backdrop of opinions regarding the positioning of the USR compared to the initiative of the family for family redefining in the Constitution as the Union between a man and a woman. For 4 months the interim head of USR was provided by Elek Levente, former president of USR Cluj.
