The USR is preparing to organize, at the end of February, a Congress in which it will revise its statute, but the package of proposals submitted to the members’ debate does not include an amendment regarding the clarification of the ideological positioning of the formation.
The USR congress, announced at the end of February, will not bring changes in the party’s leadership team, but only a change in the status.
USR president, Dominic Fritz, announced that he will convene a party Congress in February to propose some structural changes within the statute. Between these and those related to the mandates of the elected officials. Some of the proposals that will enter the final decision in the congress involve the co-opting of some personalities in the leadership forums, the introduction of an internal voting system that supports the pluralism of opinions in the party, as well as the accountability of the political leadership of the branches, with the possibility of dismissal in exceptional cases, USR informed.
Ideological positioning
Claudiu Năsui and Cristina Prună proposed three amendments, including limiting the mandates of elected officials. This is the only one that was put to a vote in the Political Committee. The president of the formation, Dominic Fritz, did not submit to the vote the proposal that the USR statute should note the fact that the party is a center-right one, another amendment on the list.
“The center-right was pre-censored”, says Claudiu Năsui, the amendment not even being put on the table of the Political Committee. The party’s president, Dominic Fritz, “he wants to take the party to the left. Hence the current government’s support for increased taxes and red tape. It would be contrary to his strategy to include such an article in the statute. (…) We wanted the amendment to be an obstacle to moving to the left. Mr. Fritz also declared in his candidacy for the presidency (no – of the party) that he no longer wants a center-right party, he wants a center party. That’s the first step, and anyway – center – it sounds good, it sounds equidistant, even if it doesn’t mean anything, but if it sounds good, it’s enough“.
An overwhelming majority, i.e. 11,047 members (91.25% of the votes), voted in an internal referendum in 2020 for the orientation of the USR to be center-right, but the statute was not changed in this sense. Voices in the party say that the reason is stronger control over the party.
What analysts say
“This should be the main topic of discussion at the USR Congress. Namely, how can these factions that were born from the USR be brought back” – Radu Carp, professor of political science.
Analysts, however, are of the opinion that the lack of commitment brings a loss to the party.
“I notice that the USR follows exactly, but precisely, the trajectory of this party, the 5 Star Movement in Italy, which, in the same way, tried to position itself as a new party, as a party without ideology, as a party open to the ideas of reform. And in the end it managed to enter a kind of shadow cone because it could not find its electorate and it could not find its current moment either. So here is the big problem of the USR. What is, in fact, the electorate of this party? Because we see that the party has stabilized at around 10% and cannot take over the electorate from other parts. Moreover, through the dissident movements it had, the USR managed to fragment this electorate somehow. I think this should be the main topic of discussion at the USR Congress. Namely, how can these factions that were born from the USR be brought back,” says Radu Carp, professor of political science.
With regard to the motivation that kept the party in place in this endeavor, Professor Radu Carp points out that the very closeness to the PNL could be the basis: “Probably USR does not want to define itself ideologically very well because it is afraid of this possibility that PNL wants an absorption merger when it leaves the center-right. And there is another aspect. USR is a member of Renew, which maintains the same ideological ambiguity. That is, it considers itself a liberal party, without considering itself to be center-right.”
If they said, we are in a slightly progressive area, not to scare anyone, from the point of view of values in society and in a pro-entrepreneurship area, with a free market in the economic area, I think it would be much better to dissociate from the PNL – George Jiglău, political scientist
If USR was more determined and more committed to progress, without going as far as SENS, it could recover the electorate it lost and continues to lose, says political scientist George Jiglău
“It would help them much more, as an ideological positioning, a pro-market economic positioning, so less interventionist and more related to entrepreneurship, let’s say, but from the point of view of values, somewhere more progressive. Because, when we say center-right, with a softening, that we also put the center there, but it doesn’t change much, there are also European conservatives. And USR, I think that had a lot to gain in all this ideologically unassumed past, when in 2018, at the family referendum, they were the only ones who positioned themselves somewhere in a progressive area at the time.
So, if they said, we are in a slightly progressive area, not to scare anyone, from the point of view of values in society and in a pro-entrepreneurship area, with a free market in the economic area, I think it would be much better to dissociate from the PNL, for example, because the PNL also says that it is also center-right, but it is conservative. And the PNL is pro-market from an economic point of view, but a conservative party in the area of values, assumed conservative, including by switching to the EPP already many years ago”, says the expert.
The USR congress to change the party’s status comes after the electoral failure of the Capital City Hall elections in December, in which Cătălin Drula, the party’s candidate, ranked fourth, with 13.90%. It will take place between February 27 and March 1, in Sibiu.
