Liberal leader Nicolae Ciuca on Sunday evening said the PNL (National Liberal Party) and PSD (Social Democratic Party) need to come with their own candidates for the upcoming presidential election, while also saying that it’s only natural for the PSD chair and the current PM, Marcel Ciolacu, to run on behalf of the Social Democrats.
„I think that the best choice right now would be that the two parties each have its own candidate, because we are talking about the most representative position in the Romanian state, we are talking about the person who receives the highest vote of confidence from the Romanian citizens and, no matter how much we want to talk about this coalition and the benefits of a stable government, we still need to talk about the hardcore voters, on both sides, who will definitely not vote for a joint candidate (…) If we look at the numbers, we can see that, although the joint list, the way I see it, achieved our initial goal of winning half plus one of the mandates, because we did won more than 50%, so, again, even if we did achieve our goal with the joint list, when we look at the scores obtained by PNL and PSD, separately, we won’t find the same balance. If we look at the separate scores, the sum of the percentages is much higher than the one obtained on the common list. Which means that we need to learn our lesson and have separate candidates,” Ciuca told a broadcast on Prima News private television channel
Also, when asked about a possible candidacy of the PSD leader and current PM, Marcel Ciolacu, in the presidential election, Nicolae Ciuca said that it will only be natural for Marcel Ciolacu to run.
„If we go by similarity, I think it’s normal for him to run. He’s the party president, he’s prime minister in office (…) So I think He will run. I’m not sure, though,” said Ciuca.
The PNL chair further admitted that a right-wing construction would be preferable, but the electoral score obtained by ADU (United Right Alliance) does not ensure a majority.
„Well, we have to look at the numbers and see what the final score is. Can we make a consistent majority with this final score? We can’t. So at the moment we see no other better choice than to stay in this formula. This formula [with the PSD as governing partner – editor’s note] represents the only way we can ensure the stability of the country based on a majority. However, if tomorrow we had a score that would give us a majority, it would certainly be preferable to have a political construct on the right,” emphasised Ciuca.
At the same time, he says that he expected to have a good dialogue with Elena Lasconi, who announced her candidacy for the head of USR [Save Romania Union], one of the parties in the United Right Alliance.
„Maybe we can have a dialogue. I want to have a dialogue with everyone, because that seems normal to me. (…) I know Mrs. Lasconi, we have met on two or three occasions. She is a very respectable lady and I expect we will have a dialogue as good as possible,” stated Ciuca.
AGERPRES
