Băsescu agrees with Ugar: Dan reassured those who toppled the government

It's rare for a former Romanian president to agree with Ugar Geszta, but we've lived to see it: according to Traian Băsescu, Nicușor Dan encouraged wavering members of parliament to reject the Mureșan government precisely by repeatedly ruling out early elections. The former head of state said on B1 TV's Wednesday evening program that those who had until then been worried about their parliamentary seats could understand from the president's message that they could safely withhold their support, without having to fear being sent back to voters because of it.

Ugar has been writing the same thing ever since Dan, only a few hours after nominating Mureșan, felt the need to make such a statement. One would think that if the head of state designates someone to form a government, he would at least avoid stripping that person of one of his strongest bargaining chips in advance. Nicușor, however, made sure that members of parliament would have to decide the government's fate without having to worry for a second about their own. Then, once the vote turned out accordingly, he once again explained how important it would be to reach an agreement.

Meanwhile, Băsescu has also shifted his own earlier position: he said that until now he had opposed early elections because of how cumbersome and time-consuming the procedure was, but he has now concluded that no other solution remains. He added that he finds it hard to understand why Dan insists on rejecting them. In other words, even the man who once argued against early elections using exactly the reasoning the president still cites to justify continuing the parliamentary bargaining is now pushing for a return to the ballot box.

Dan's statement today, however, posed a fresh puzzle. At a brief press conference in Prague, he said he expects the parties at Cotroceni Palace on Monday, that they should hold their internal consultations in the meantime and arrive with proposals capable of passing through parliament — and in the same breath announced that he would name a new prime ministerial candidate on Monday afternoon. He described Mureșan's failed attempt to form a government as a necessary step for parties and citizens alike to understand that politics requires consensus. This last explanation is especially rich, since it implies that a candidate for prime minister can be put through negotiations, program drafting, ministerial hearings and a parliamentary defeat, only for the president to deliver, at the end, the moral of an elementary-school homeroom lesson: children, please reach an agreement. Meanwhile, though, the country keeps waiting for a functioning government, and the MPs have learned precisely the lesson that failing to reach an agreement carries no consequences for their own mandates.

What remains most puzzling about Monday's schedule is where this unshakable presidential certainty comes from. If the parties are only now sitting down to decide whom to support and on what terms, how does Dan already know he will have a candidate worth naming by Monday afternoon? One can certainly pencil an intention to appoint someone into the calendar, but that doesn't create a parliamentary majority for them — and that is exactly what has been missing from every carefully staged attempt to form a government so far. Of course, it's also possible that Monday's consultation will merely be the solemn reading-out of something already agreed by then, in which case they could really spare us the charade of the president reaching his decision only after listening to the parties' arguments there. In any case, this is the kind of mathematical equation whose result was announced before the figures were even plugged in; luckily, the head of state was a math olympiad competitor, so at least he is sure to understand the derivation.

Ugar