The presidential elections of 2025 have triggered a deep political crisis in Romania. The resignation of Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, following the failure of the government coalition in the first round of elections, emphasized political instability. Instead of initiating immediate reorganizations, some formations turn their attention to the finalists of the electoral race, George Simion and Nicușor Dan, hoping for an association with the future president.
The big parties started the year at the Mass of the Archive Photo Negotiers
“The National Liberal Party is in an extremely difficult financial situation, with tens of millions of euro debt, at local level, as is our case, in Gorj, with the headquarters disconnected from utilities. We are in an extremely bad situation and that is why this leadership or future leadership (…) must think in terms of the party, and in a very time.confessed Dan Vîlceanu, former Liberal Minister, even on the day of the final results in the first round of the presidential elections.
And PNL is not the only party in a dramatic situation. According to political analyst Adrian Zăbavă “For both PSD and PNL, things do not look pink at all ”. The largest parties in the country are in the face of difficult choices.
PNL, on the threshold of bankruptcy
The line of elections of 2024 brings the liberals to the threshold of bankruptcy, with debts and with poor branches, as the former minister Dan Vîlceanu even showed. After last year’s failure in the canceled presidential election, with the candidate Nicolae Ciuca, PNL has changed its leadership and is currently the party that manages to have the most credible political character, to the interim president Ilie Bolojan.
The credibility of the head of interim state did not help the candidate of the formation, Crin Antonescu. “The National Liberal Party has a strategy problem, is incoherently strategic in recent years and has lived only from events, in my opinion. As a result, he can only hope that Nicușor Dan will win, being a rescue for the party. They also have Mr. Bolojan, practically the only political character in the old politics, who today has a gram of credibility and can be relevant ”, Points Adrian Jiglău.
PSD, with eyes at round II
Reformation also needs PSD, a party which “He received a very important warning in November, and what is happening now only confirms that, not only in the short term, but also in the medium and long term, the party will have a problem and that gold or other sovereign parties take them from voters without just and perhaps.” shows the expert.
However, the formation led by Marcel Ciolacu ignored the result of the elections last year and continued in the current formula, even with the party leader at the head of the Romanian Executive. After Ciolacu’s delayed departure from the government, the party also avoids positioning to support a candidate in round II, waiting for the result.
But a possible gold adventure in government will only deepen the gap in which the social-democrats are sinking, says Adrian Zăbavă: “The fact that the PSD seems to leave the door open to a collaboration, is only despair, no opportunity for a positive scenario for them.”
USR again in reorganization
The presidential elections of 2025 also produced earthquake, a party that reformed. Elena Lasconi, the head of the party who managed to enter last year with Călin Georgescu in the final race, was forced to resign from the front of the formation, after the low score obtained in the elections of May 4.
However, USR has a candidate placed in round II, after abandoning Lasconi, and political analyst Adrian Zăbavă is of the opinion that “Nicușor Dan’s victory would be equivalent to a recovery of the USR and probably a re-entry of the scene including in a possible governance. It does not mean that it will guard the reform, reorganization party. No, because if Nicușor Dan wins, the USR must regain its identity, to have an institutional effort and to re-establish the institution. It follows it.
Regardless of the situation, the analyst concludes that “USR needs repositioning, a recalification, an approach to its electorate, because it has been seen, at the earliest in the European Parliamentary elections, that when there is a competitor, it has problems in maximizing the vote. “
The result of the elections of May 18
“There are different scenarios that involve different strategies, but PSD is in a difficult situation regardless of the name of the one who will become the next president of Romania”, Adrian Zăbavă bridge.
Nor does Nicușor Dan’s success really save any of the great formations. While USR has to find its identity, PNL would have saved “only in the short term ”.
But the Liberals need “A approach to the electorate”, and “The chance of the National Liberal Party today can be called Ilie Bolojan, whether it will remain at the top, in an executive function, or not”He concludes.
