The appointment of Adrian Veștea for the position of prime minister, without prior consultation with the PNL leadership, generated controversies that exceeded the parliamentary calculations of the moment. Corneliu Bjola, professor of Diplomatic Studies at the College of St. Cross of the University of Oxford, claims, in an analysis for “Adevărul”, that Romania is going through a period of political tensions that raise questions about the functioning of democratic mechanisms and the relationship between the president and the political parties.
President Nicușor Dan announced on Sunday morning, in a press statement held at the Cotroceni Palace, the appointment of Adrian Veștea for the position of prime minister, after Eugen Tomac renounced the mandate to form the government received on June 4.
First Vice-President of the PNL and former Minister of Development, Adrian Veștea accepted the nomination without an explicit mandate from the party leadership, a decision that generated critical reactions within the formation, including from the liberal leader Ilie Bolojan.
“The attempt to impose on a party a prime minister from its ranks, without even having a prior consultation and after all the decisions taken unanimously by the party’s forums, violates every principle of loyal political collaboration”, transmitted Ilie Bolojan.
“Exactly the kind of behind-the-scenes politics he was condemning in the campaign”
Corneliu Bjola sees a contradiction between the messages that were the basis of Nicușor Dan’s election campaign and the current political decisions.
“I am afraid that we are witnessing a particularly serious moment of political inflection. Today the president is practicing exactly the type of behind-the-scenes politics that he condemned during the campaign, when he promised a new social contract based on keeping his word and rejecting 180-degree turns immediately after winning the elections. He explained then very clearly that the rise of extremism and the polarization of society are the consequence of the way the state was run and the break between the political elite and citizens. Today, through the behind-the-scenes games they patronize, they risk becoming part of the exact same problem.” says Corneliu Bjola.
In his opinion, the stake goes beyond the stability of a future cabinet and aims at the very credibility of the political project that was the basis of the current president’s electoral victory.
“The danger is not only the possibility of an unstable government. The stake is much higher: the erosion of the credibility of the only leader who managed, after the annulment of the 2024 elections, to coagulate an anti-extremist democratic front. If the president who won on a platform of integrity and break with the “system” begins to practice the same behind-the-scenes combinatorics, the message sent to the electorate is that there is, in reality, no alternative to political cynicism. And this fuels the very radicalization it claims to want to combat”claims the Diplomatic Studies professor.
Parallel with Charles II
Corneliu Bjola believes that the most problematic development at the moment is the attempt to reconfigure the internal balances in the PNL by supporting Adrian Veștea.
“The most serious move at the moment is the attempt to fracture the PNL by promoting second-rank leaders, convenient to Cotroceni, but lacking internal legitimacy. The operation inevitably recalls the practices of Charles II. In the 1930s, the king deliberately weakened the party system by encouraging minority factions, stimulating dissent and promoting his own favorites, with the aim of transforming the historical parties into mere extensions of his will. Later, after the experience of the Tătărescu government, Carol went even further, appointing Octavian Goga, the leader of a party ranked fourth in the elections, as prime minister, using that minority government as a launching pad for the February 1938 coup d’état, the suspension of the Constitution and the establishment of the royal dictatorship”. says Bjola.
The stakes behind the appointment of Adrian Veștea. How Nicușor Dan wants to block the anticipated and isolate AUR
However, the professor states that the historical parallel has its limits.
“We are not at that point and the analogy should not be forced. However, the line of force is clear: when the head of state consolidates his influence by deliberately weakening the parties and by promoting “pocket” leaders, against the will of his own organizations, we enter into a dangerous dynamic of personalization of power”. warns the Oxford professor.
Beyond the political dispute, Corneliu Bjola says that there are also a number of questions related to the functioning of institutions with duties in the field of national security.
“We do not yet have all the data to understand what is happening behind the scenes. However, a number of episodes raise questions: the handling of the Georgescu file, the repeated extension of the interim leadership of the intelligence services, the lack of convincing clarifications regarding the November 2024 elections, the delays and institutional contradictions on security issues, the demonstrated inability to respond adequately to the drone incidents and the almost complete ignorance of the scale of hybrid warfare. Taken together, these elements suggests the existence of serious tensions and dysfunctions within the state’s security apparatus, which the Presidency either can no longer control or fails to manage effectively”he says.
The risk of a “repackaged Carlism”
The professor’s conclusion is that the danger does not come from a sudden rupture of the democratic order, but from the accumulation of practices that can lead to the gradual concentration of power.
“The greatest danger is not that a dictatorship will be established tomorrow. The danger is that, step by step, a soft personalist regime is coagulating: a president elected on a reformist platform, who justifies all his compromises with the “system” by the need to defend the “Western” orientation and block extremism, while the concrete effects of his actions undermine precisely these objectives. Charles II, in turn, justified his concentration of power by the argument to save democracy from the chaos of parties and extremism. The result, however, was the complete discrediting of the democratic regime and the opening of the way to decades of authoritarianism and totalitarianism.” says Corneliu Bjola.
When Nicușor Dan proposed to Adrian Veștea to be prime minister: he overturned the plan to go to Mount Athos
In his opinion, a way out of this situation is possible, but it requires a change of approach by President Nicușor Dan.
“The only truly responsible gesture would be a pause for reflection and recalibration. The president should distance himself from the circle of yes-men and shadow advisers who maintain anti-party rhetoric, abandon any attempt to fragment the PNL, explicitly reject any political use of justice or the intelligence services and resume the dialogue with civil society. This requires public acceptance of the mistakes so far and re-anchoring the mandate in the promises that brought him victory, not in calculations of political survival and in the fatalistic logic of “there is no other solution””. concludes the professor of Diplomatic Studies at Oxford University.
