PSD (Social Democrat Party)'s extraordinary convention at the end of last week officially and festively nominated Adrian Nastase as its candidate for the presidential elections and at the same time invited President Ion Iliescu to resume his party leader position as soon as head of state term is over. Both decisions were unanimously made by the over 1,200 delegates and were hailed with long rounds of applause and preceded with enthusiastic speeches from either the party leaders or the territorial delegates.
The PSD convention considered only the festive aspects, somewhat anticipated by the internal party debate. None of the speakers took the time to analyse the local elections, which saw PSD scoring less than expected or to find the reasons why the party lost the elections in places considered its traditional turf, either. At the same time, nobody said anything about replacing the current executive leadership of PSD, the Co-ordination Bureau, appointed as interim leading body after the local elections.
On the other hand, the ruling party has set some very bold goals for the parliamentary elections. It wants to win the presidential elections and the parliamentary elections by scoring at least four million votes, that is 25% more than it got during the local elections.
PSD's strategists expect the party to derive electoral benefits from President Ion Iliescu's return as party leader, a move confirmed by the head of state. He might be called "chairman" or "president", as Adrian Nastase was saying, with the exact position left to be set later.
The official invitation made to the head of state to run as an independent candidate on PSD's Senate slates and run the party after the elections was settled a little while before the convention started. Party members loyal to Iliescu were in favour of this idea, yet the leaders that went up the ladder during Adrian Nastase's term raised the question of this move being in breach of the Constitution. The proposal was publicly revealed during Nastase's speech prompted by his accepting to run for President. What are the reasons behind this decision? Ion Iliescu is, as Adrian Nastase says, "the best mentor" that can guide PSD "towards a responsibly conducted policy," "is the most suitable person to talk about honesty and fairness, about being close to people", "has been a model that puts politics and economy in the service of the social sector."
mirela.luca@zf.ro
