"Through ourselves"... others win!

Mr. Stoica’s attempts to get his party’s approval for an alliance with ApR will continue, as the PNL National Council chose to extend negotiations to that effect. The final decision was put off for the second half of August and may come from an extraordinary Congress. The extension was probably the price of avoiding a breakup within PNL, which would look nothing short of ludicrous after long years of liberal reunification. Many party personalities have risen against a marriage with the ApR, which they dismissed as a party of “neocommunists and Securitate collaborators,” and the senior Liberals have likened such an alliance to the relinquishing of moral values and national-liberal traditions. Dan Amedeu Lazarescu even called ApR the “Alliance for Russia.” Some of the personalities who opposed the PNL-ApR alliances have already left the party or their positions within it. New withdrawals are possible, but a breakup seems out of the question.

Mr. Stoica, backed by most territorial branches, has struck an emphasis on the alliance with ApR, regarded as an adequate answer not only to the realities of present Romanian politics, but to both parties’ electorate, which speaks in favour of an alliance and which, according to the polls, are both tied to liberal attitudes.

Unable to ignore the arguments of those who oppose the alliance – although many of them resort to fancy but powerless criteria – PNL has no real alternative to this alliance, whether the party, as an entity, wants it or not. Much more so now, after testing the waters. Had they not done so, the party’s image, good or bad, would probably remain as it is, until the forthcoming decisive meeting with the electorate this autumn. But once the testing is done, things can never be as they used to. Unless it leaves the road it seems engaged on, PNL is threatened to appear, soon, not as a charging and rising party, but one left in shreds by contradictions between its own factions, which can no longer hope for a bulldozer to sweep across the whole political stage with. Even with ApR – a party whose audience has deflated after the headstart it got a few months ago – PNL will have to negotiate increasingly more in a defensive stead as time passes. Go back to CDR? It couldn’t possibly, even if those who oppose an alliance with ApR now would force a comeback. A renewed appeal to moral values would not earn any more audience, because these values have been compromised by the very way in which the Democratic Convention has governed. And to come before voters alone, the risk for a party with a compromised image is too high, and even a failure to make it to Parliament is possible.

In case the alliance with ApR fails through, the Peasants will probably think they’ve had their revenge, both for having been abandoned in the locals, and for the words the liberal leaders used to call them – losers doomed for opposition to regenerate themselves. And whereas the Liberals are unable to get along, there is one thing almost all of them rule out: a new alliance with the Peasants. Perhaps the Cotroceni would rub hands with satisfaction if Mr. Stoica’s attempt comes to nothing, because Mr. Constantinescu feels ousted by the alliance, which would go for the presidency with other names, anyway. If the alliance fails, Mr. Constantinescu’s victory may only be a passing one.

The big winner would be, in fact, the PD. If the PNL-ApR alliance doesn’t work, PD would consolidate its position as a safe partner in any future government formulas. The PNL-ApR alliance would establish a party that would rise to second place, after the almighty PDSR, in the hierarchy of Romanian parties. This party would control the games for a possible, although hypothetical, tightening of the centre-right rows against PDSR, but just as well it could negotiate the future government with PDSR, on the foundations of a programme which, under the existing constraints, would even be reform-minded. Without this party, PD would remain not just the number two party in the general hierarchy, but number one, a supplier of prime ministers, in any alliance imagined against the PDSR. Therefore, PD is already accusing PDSR of “perestroikism.”

Although it would obviously feel better if a PNL-ApR alliance were to fail, PD would not be left entirely carefree. Because, as it has become absolutely clear – and the difficulty itself of striking a large-scale alliance between PNL and ApR is proof -that an alliance whose only purpose is to single PDSR out is not only unrealistic, but, politically, a fairy-tale. PDSR cannot be singled out, but still, it won’t be able to rule alone, because it will probably fail to gather a sufficient score, thus forcing the so-called “social-democratic pole,” inevitably attracting PD. Not as the first voice, of course, but as a mere participant. PD is not PN?CD: they will do their games and force the others to follow suit.