NOT HUNGRY: PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR DISCUSSES RECENT

C O N F I D E N T I A L BUCHAREST 000633

STATE FOR EUR/CE

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/08/2018
TAGS: PGOV PREL RO
SUBJECT: NOT HUNGRY: PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR DISCUSSES RECENT
ELECTION MISSTEPS, LOOKS AHEAD TO POST-ELECTION SCENARIOS

Classified By: DCM JGuthrie-Corn, reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) Summary: Presidential Advisor Chiritoiu acknowledged
shortcomings in the PD-L's recent election campaign,
including overconfidence and running a candidate who evinced
insufficient enthusiasm in running for the Bucharest Mayoral
post. He denied rumors of a PD-L rapprochment with the PNL,
noting that the anti-Basescu camp was now the dominant force
in the PNL. He said that the separate timing of the
parliamentary and presidential elections meant that more
weight would be put on the parties' respective candidates for
Prime Minister to serve as "engines" for their parties'
campaigns. He said that the PD-L strategy was to win pole
position in the number of parliamentary seats won in order to
claim the Prime Ministership, but evinced concerns that
Basescu's enemies might again resort to suspending the
President temporarily in order to have an acting President
nominate a candidate of their own choosing. End Summary.


2. (C) The August summer lull provided an opportunity for
Polcouns and senior Political FSN to visit a near-empty
Cotroceni palace for an informal lunch in the Presidential
Office canteen with Presidential Advisor Bogdan Chiritoiu
August 6. Chiritoiu provided a frank assessment of the
pro-Basescu PD-L's performance in the recent local and
municipal elections, noting that despite "relatively good"
results overall, the PD-L had taken a "bad approach" to the
key Bucharest municipal contest, including the party's
overconfidence and sense of entitlement that it "owned" the
Bucharest Mayorality. Another mistake was in nominating
former Interior Minister Vasile Blaga despite Blaga's evident
ambivalence about running for the position. Blaga had agreed
to run only after a number of other PD-L leaders had
declined, and his demeanor had conveyed to the public that he
was in the race out of a sense of obligation to the party and
was not sufficiently "hungry" for the job. Next time, he
said, we need somebody who really wants the position.
Chiritoiu bemoaned the fact that despite the relatively close
election results, it was the PSD and not the PD-L which had
succeeded in impressing on the minds of Romanian voters that
it had won the election.


3. (C) Chiritoiu said that rumors of a rapprochment between
the PD-L and the PNL were just that--rumors. He warned that
one should not read too much into President Basescu's recent
refusal to criticize the government's response to ongoing
floods in northern Romania (in comparison to previous years).
Basescu was not warming up to the PNL, he said, but wanted
to project an image of himself as a statesman above party
politics. Chiritoiu added that the Tariceanu-Olteanu wing of
the PNL was adamantly opposed to a rapprochement with the
PD-L and instead sought a post-election alliance with the
PSD. While PNL factional leader Ludovic Orban had tried to
carve out a niche as a proponent of reconciliation with the
President, Orban's star was now waning in the aftermath of
his unsuccessful run for the Bucharest mayorship. The
result, he noted, was that even Orban was now careful to hew
to the anti-Basescu orthodoxy in the PNL.


4. (C) Chiritoiu said that none of Romania's political
parties were enthusiastic about the recently adopted
uninominal election rules. He counted President Basescu
among the skeptics, but added that Basescu had resisted
approaches from--unnamed--political figures who had urged him
to block the implementation of the new system. While no
party (with the exception of the right-extremist PRM) had
publicly spoken out against the new system, many politicians
across the political spectrum were silently hoping that the
PRM's legal challenge against the new voting rules would be
upheld by the Constitutional Court. Chiritoiu evinced the
hope that parliament will amend the new system over time,
noting that his own preference was for a more "clearcut"
system modeled either on the UK's first-past-the-post system
or the French two-round system.


5. (C) Turning to the upcoming legislative elections,
Chiritoiu remarked that aside from the new electoral rules,
one major change was the "de-linking" of the parliamentary
and presidential elections, with the former taking place this
year and the latter taking place next year. Previous
elections featured the presidential candidates as the
standard-bearers and figureheads for their respective
parties. This year, he said, it would have to be the Prime
Ministerial candidates--Stolojan for the PD-L, Tariceanu for
the PNL, and Geoana for the PSD--who would have to serve as
the "engines" for their respective parties.


6. (C) Handicapping the various candidates, Chiritoiu
remarked that Geoana was still hamstrung by his image as a
relative "lightweight" in comparison to his peers; Tariceanu
for his part had more gravitas and--after surprising everyone
by lasting four years on the job--now carried himself like a
real Prime Minister. He insisted that the "unserious" side
of Tariceanu still came through in the fact that the Prime
Minister had interrupted his French holiday only briefly to
deal with the flood disaster, and had quickly resumed his
vacation plans. He said that Stolojan strengths were
unconventional ones--the public saw him as cold, capable,
honest, stubborn, and determined--a "Germanic" candidate who
still nevertheless connected with a "Latin" electorate.
Asked whether Stolojan might suffer from the same handicap
that Blaga had (e.g, not appearing sufficiently "hungry" for
the job),Chiritoiu replied that Stolojan's appeal was
precisely because he never appeared motivated by a desire for
personal power or self-interest; his message was "I'm here to
serve you..." Chiritoiu bemoaned the fact that the PD-L had
not yet announced its formal choice of candidate for Prime
Minister, noting that the party was losing precious time, but
Stolojan was stubbornly refusing to formally announce his
candidacy until after his party's electoral platform was
completed.

7.(C) Chiritoiu defended the late-2007 merger of Basescu's PD
and the PLD into the PD-L. While it had not met the high
expectations that surrounded its formation, the merger had
nevertheless resulted in the addition of many high-profile
PLD politicians including Stolojan and Stoica, and the
injection of many "good ideas" into the new party. On the
negative side, many PLD voters had abandoned the new party
and returned to the PNL fold. Chiritoiu argued however, that
the PD would have fared even worse had the merger not taken
place, as the PLD had contributed to victories in a number of
regions including Suceava, Botosani, Neamt, and Dambovita.
Without their help, he concluded, it really would have been a
PSD victory during the recent local elections.


8. (C) Turning to post-electoral scenarios, Chiritoiu said
that a key objective for the PD-L was to win the greatest
number of parliamentary seats in order to lay claim to the
Prime Ministership. He noted that while the consensus view
within the Presidential office was that the other parties
would eventually assent to the formation of a Stolojan
government if the PD-L wins the most parliamentary seats,
especially given the shared objective of newly-elected
parliamentarians to avoid the quick dissolution of parliament
so soon after the elections, since they would be loath to
expend the energy and resources needed for another election.
He added, however, that the "real game" was not the numbers
but the negotiations, acknowledging that the PD-L side was
not in a "good position" in that regard.


9. (C) Chiritoiu said a continuing concern in the President's
camp was that Basescu's opponents might again resort to
suspending him in order to have an interim President (most
likely PSD Senate President Vacaroiu) nominate the next Prime
Minister. Under constitutional rules, he said, the
dissolution of Parliament could not take place within 60 days
of the first failed vote of confidence in a new government.
This provided ample time for an anti-Basescu coalition to
start and complete the suspension procedures in time to
install a Prime Ministerial candidate of their own choosing.
Their goal, he said, would not be to permanently remove
Basescu--who would likely return again through a referendum
vote--but rather to seize the Presidential powers for one
month. He added that the PD-L was exploring how to make such
a move "too costly" to contemplate. Asked whether the PSD
could in turn claim the mandate to nominate a Prime
Ministerial candidate if it took more parliamentary seats
than the PD-L, Chiritoiu paused and assented, but insisted
that it was still unlikely that PSD head Geoana would realize
his hopes of becoming Prime Minister. Geoana's opponents in
the PSD (including former President Iliescu and ex-Prime
Minister Nastase) would more likely maneuver to offer the
Prime Ministership to Tariceanu in order to deny Geoana a
chance to become Prime Minister, he said.


10. (C) Comment: A lietmotif that emerged in much of
Chiritoiu's conversation was frustration that while the PD-L
had learned some lessons from the recent local and municipal
elections, his party had done little to assimilate these
lessons or to put as much energy into coalition-building as
their rivals have. Chiritoiu was quite evidently frustrated,
too, at the party's lethargic pace in formally announcing
it's candidate for Prime Minister, underscoring perhaps that
it is not just Blaga who was insufficiently hungry for the
job, but perhaps the rest of the party as well. While PSD
contacts including parliamentary whip Hrebenciuc have
confirmed to us that suspension of the President remains an
active option, they claim that that they would do this only
as a last resort, that is, if Basescu ignores any election
result that gives his opponents a parliamentary majority.
End Comment.


TAUBMAN