PYRRHIC VICTORY AT THE LIBERAL CONFERENCE: PM

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BUCHAREST 000065

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/21/2017
TAGS: PGOV PINR PROP RO
SUBJECT: PYRRHIC VICTORY AT THE LIBERAL CONFERENCE: PM
TARICEANU CLINGS ON BUT NO PARADE IN SIGHT

REF: A. BUCHAREST 1811


B. BUCHAREST 1810

C. BUCHAREST 1646

Classified By: DCM Mark A. Taplin for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) Summary: The National Liberal Party (PNL) reelected
Prime Minister Calin Popescu-Tariceanu as party president at
the extraordinary party convention held on January 12-13.
Some leading Liberals, including several Tariceanu allies,
were defeated in their leadership bids by more populist and
radical leaders. After a series of expulsions and defections
of high-profile, popular figures like Mona Musca and Teodor
Stolojan, the Liberal Party is increasingly forsaking a broad
political base for tighter internal discipline. Whatever
success Tariceanu might have enjoyed in projecting a positive
image at the helm of the Liberal conference and to showcase
party unity was sabotaged by Basescu's political intimates,
who leaked news of a 2005 note from Tariceanu to the
President, asking him to intervene with prosecutors on behalf
of Liberal Party eminence grise and energy oligarch Dinu
Patriciu. Since then, the political atmosphere in Bucharest,
always charged, has heated up to levels last seen eighteen
months ago, when the Liberal/Democrat alliance first began to
visibly tear apart. The Prime Minister,s January 19 sacking
of the head of the Tax Administration, a Basescu ally, was an
aggressive countermove. Despite everything, Tariceanu and
his allies are still holding on, but their political options
and margin for error continue to erode. End summary.


2. (SBU) Some 1300 delegates at the January 12-13
extraordinary party convention unanimously elected PM
Tariceanu as president of the PNL. Tariceanu was
unchallenged in the aftermath of the expulsions from the
party of his most vocal critics last year (reftels).
Tariceanu's re-acceptance speech pledged unity and a more
assertive liberal identity. He asserted that the Liberal
party and his leadership were the main engines that ushered
in the EU accession, and Tariceanu insisted that in the
crucial next two years Romania can achieve progress under
conditions of political stability and continuity of the
PNL-PD alliance. He said, "tensions between the PNL and PD
are the result of natural competition and are not harmful
provided that they do not lead to political chaos or endanger
the fulfillment of the governing program."


3. (SBU) The delegates also voted for the 15 PNL vice
presidents and the 15-member Central Political Bureau (BPC).
At the 2002 and 2005 party congress, the elected party
president was entitled to choose his team of five vice
presidents and eight BPC members. The 2007 convention agreed
to a larger leadership formula and returned to direct vote
for these positions. Some of Tariceanu's closest
collaborators lost their elections to party leadership
positions, defeated in some cases by party radicals and local
branch populists.


4. (C) The biggest surprise of the convention was the defeat
of the President of the Parliament's Chamber of Deputies,
Bogdan Olteanu, a former minister and godson of the Prime
Minister. Olteanu was defeated by Bucharest vice mayor and
head of the PNL Bucharest branch, Ludovic Orban, in a contest
for the important position of Vice President for
Communications and Public Relations. Orban is known for his
outspoken criticism of President Basescu. For instance,
Orban is one of the few Liberals openly advocating that the
PNL put forward a candidate of its own in the next
presidential elections. While Olteanu by most accounts is
the Prime Minister's favorite son, he has himself been
critical behind the scenes of Tariceanu's political
shortcomings. He has not hidden his desire to succeed the
Prime Minister as Liberal president, despite his relative
youth. Olteanu's organizational skills and role as "party
discipliner" have meant that, behind the scenes, he has been
a force with whom to be reckoned. However, one well-informed
media commentator told us that, in fact, Tariceanu had
quietly backed Orban's candidacy for the vice-presidential
post because he was aware of his protogee Olteanu's unloyal
sniping, and had concluded that the acerbic and uncharismatic
Orban had less potential to unseat him than did Olteanu.


5. (C) Another outspoken critic of Basescu, Crin Antonescu,
was unchallenged for the number two party position, Vice
President for Political Affairs. GOR Minister of Culture
Adrian Iorgulescu, lost the vote for Vice President for Civil
Society and Equal Opportunity to Senator Norica Nicolai.
Antonescu, Nicolai, and Orban are generally viewed as the
leaders of the radical wing of the Liberals: populist
(despite their elite, intellectual profiles),ntagonistic to
Basescu, left-European in their policy outlook. They also
were the strongest advocates for expelling the more popular,

BUCHAREST 00000065 002 OF 002


ex- party Presidents Theodor Stolojan and Valeriu Stoica, the
former being far too close to Basescu to be trusted either by
Tariceanu or the radicals.


6. (C) Another surprise, of sorts, was the defeat of Foreign
Minister Razvan Ungureanu for the position of PNL Vice
President for European Affairs by Adrian Cioroianu.
Ungureanu is believed by some to have been punished for
insufficient loyalty to Tariceanu and the party, in
particular for his failure to toe the line when the Liberals
made their abortive announcement last June supporting the
withdrawal of Romanian troops from Iraq. Ungureanu never had
strong political ties to the party base nor did he actively
lobby within the party for the vice-presidential position.
To the extent that Ungureanu was seen as standing more in
President Basescu's shadow and not Tariceanu's, he was always
in for an uphill fight. Yet the youthful and articulate
Ungureanu polls consistently as the most popular Minister in
the government, and once again the Liberals seemed to be
turning away from a political figure who could earn them
votes. Instead, someone as unappealing as the dour Teodor
Melescanu, a former Foreign Minister under President Iliescu
in the early nineties and the current Deputy Speaker of the
Senate, was elected PNL Vice President for International
Relations.


7. (SBU) If the elbowing over the vice-presidential posts
was not enough to take the luster off the PNL convention, the
sudden detonation in the media of a story linking Tariceanu
to an effort to intervene with prosecutors on behalf of his
friend and patron Rompetrol President Dinu Patriciu
decisively soured the atmosphere. In a dramatic press
appearance on January 17, President Basescu's charged
Tariceanu with attempting to form "a partnership of
oligarchs" following revelations first made on television by
Basescu's close confidant and former presidential staffer
Elena Udrea. She revealed that Tariceanu had written a note
in October 2005 seeking Basescu's assistance in intervening
with prosecutors in a criminal case against Patriciu and
others on influence peddling and corruption charges. Despite
a lively effort by the Prime Minister and other Basescu foes
at turning the tables against the President in recent days,
the damage was already done, and more than a few editorials
called for Tariceanu to step down. Last Friday, Tariceanu
announced the sacking of Tax Administration head, Sebastian
Bodu who was known as a quiet Cotroceni ally. This was a
significant countermove, one that probably will usher in
another strike on the Liberals from the President,s side.


8. (C) Comment: The PNL entered 2007 looking battered by
the expulsions and defections of the likes of big name
liberals like Stolojan, Musca, Stoica, and, most recently,
the up and coming former Agriculture Minister Georghe Flutur.
The convention was intended to help restore the PNL's
confidence, assert party unity and promote Tariceanu's
leadership following last year's fierce party in-fighting.
It has seemingly come up well short of the mark. While the
Prime Minister, despite everything, remains at the helm of
both the Liberals and much of the Romanian governmental
apparatus, he in fact has gained little or no forward
momentum. Tariceanu will be hard-pressed to keep the PNL-PD
alliance afloat and stave off a collapse of what is now
officially a minority government. As Basescu and Tariceanu
trade accusations over who is more corrupt or oligarchic, it
is likelythe more popular Basescu will have the upper hand.
One irony of the PNL convention is that the Liberal radicals
and populists may have finally gotten President Basescu right
where he wants them. End comment.
TAUBMAN