Following Emil Constantinescu’s decision to withdraw from the presidential race, an announcement that changed the plans of many parties, PN?CD (Peasants’ Party), PNL (Liberal Party), UFD (Union of Right-wing Forces) and ApR (Alliance for Romania) yesterday continued the series of meetings aimed at sealing alliances, in view of this autumn’s parliamentary and presidential elections. In their turn, leaders of the National Christian-Democrat Alliance (ANCD) are trying to come up with a formula to collaborate with their former colleagues. Following several weeks of negotiations, PNL and ApR have not managed to reach an agreement yesterday with regard to their supporting a common tandem during autumn elections.
Though Mugur Isarescu asked two days ago “permission” to ponder in “silence, at least for a while” on the issue of his candidacy, the Prime Minister constitutes the “piece de resistance” in all negotiations that were held between political leaders.
Changes occurred last week again brought the Peasants and the Liberals to the table of negotiations and they are now closer to future collaboration within a centre-right-wing alliance. Thus, discussions kick-started on Wednesday between the two parties will be resumed today, after PN?CD holds a meeting with the Premier.
“I agree with Mugur Isarescu. If nobody is supporting him, how is he supposed to run for presidency? I talked with him on the phone several times and he prefers to be given time to make up his mind,” PN?CD chairman Ion Diaconescu stated yesterday.
Diaconescu added that his party had a back-up plan in case the prime minister did not agree to run for presidency but stated it was “a surprise.” On the other hand, PNL prime-vice-president Valeriu Stoica did not rule out the possibility for his party to support an independent candidate for presidency.
In an interview granted to Mediafax, Stoica states that PNL has no mandate from the National Council to support an independent candidate for Cotroceni, but the final decision is to be made in the Extraordinary Council to take place on August 18. In the opinion of the Liberal leader, a tandem Isarescu-Stolojan may solve the issue of regaining people’s trust in the Romanian political system. On the other hand, PN?CD leaders lashed at Valeriu Stoica for stating that PNL and the Liberal programme had to prevail in a future alliance. Ioan Muresan says that his Liberal counterpart makes statements that do not help improve ties between the two parties, “in an attempt to be the engine of an alliance made no matter with whom or how.” Besides discussions carried on with the Liberals, PN?CD and UFD representatives met for two consecutive days in order to establish the last details in the protocol that is to be concluded by the end of the month. So far, PD (Democrat Party) was not mentioned in any negotiation formula, as the Democrats chose not to attend these discussions. In its turn, UDMR (Democrat Alliance of Hungarians in Romania) will try to make a decision at the end of this week on supporting its own candidate for presidency. Election results may lay the grounds for negotiations for support in the second ballot. Over the last two weeks, the leadership of the Alliance held discussions with parliamentary parties, concerning pre- and post-electoral alliances. As a matter of fact, president Marko Bela announced that his group was willing to negotiate with any party, except for PRM (Great Romania Party) and PUNR (National Unity Party).