The media and pundits were once again right: the leader of the Social
Democratic Party, PSD, LiviuDragnea, is not the kind of politician to tolerate
for a long time the sharp criticism brought against his way of leading the party,
perceived as authoritarian. On Monday, the PSD National Executive Committee
decided with a large majority the exclusion of two leaders from the party, Vice-president
Adrian Tutuianu and general secretary Marian Neacsu. However, as LiviuDragnea
said, the reason would not be their attacks against him but alleged actions
harmful to the ruling party:
I hope all the other colleagues will
understand that our goals remain the same and that we should no longer provide
topics of discussion that are not related to the government programme or to
what Romanians wish. Any attack against me does not make me ask my colleagues
in the National Executive Committee to exclude a party member, definitely not.
We do that only when we, most of us that is, note that the red line is crossed;
the red line means actions that seriously impede the party’s stability and the
stability of the government majority.
The two Social-Democrats who were excluded from the party dismissed
the accusations against them as groundless and described the decision of the
National Executive Committee as a public execution, meant to sanction the offense
of freedom of speech. Adrian Tutuianu:
I’ve never aimed to conceal certain things
that don’t work out. I’ve been dissatisfied with the government programme in
general. I’ve had great dissatisfaction with the failure of doing what we
promised people in Dambovita County in these two years of governance. I think
the party is going in a wrong direction. And I also think that the vote on our
exclusion doesn’t necessarily mean that the losers as we are today are wrong.
In a session of the of the Dambovita branch of the PSD that he was
chairing, a session that was recorded without his knowledge, Tutuianu said that
PSD was a party of monkeys if it accepted a prime minister pocketed by
LiviuDragnea and that the present cabinet was a tragedy in terms of quality.
Tutuianu and Neacsu are not the top PSD members who firmly challenged
LiviuDragnea. Whereas the former Prime Minister MihaiTudose did not have a
public response after the meeting of the National Executive Committee, Deputy Prime
Minister Paul Stanescu joined the two excluded leaders saying that their
exclusion was a great mistake. In a press release, the mayor of Bucharest,
Gabriela Firea said that there was no way of acting within PSD under the terror
of exclusion and dissolution. Fear can temporarily maintain a status-quo, but
in no way is it a solution for progress and construction, Firea said. Asked
what could happen to the other objectors, LiviuDragnea answered briefly:
Nothing bad. For now, political analysts added maliciously.
