The perfect AUR move: the Cotroceni squad is back on the pitch, Simion skips the match

Today, October 5, Romania is holding yet another round of government-formation talks: team manager Nicușor Dan has called up a squad that is almost unchanged from before, so there is little reason to expect a different style of play, more goals, or fewer yellow and red cards. Monday's round, however, undeniably has one interesting twist: George Simion, the top man of the gold-shirts, has pulled out of the match. Not because of injury, but because, in his view, the president does not deserve to have him show up in person. He is still sending the team, though: the boycott applies only to the captain, while the rest have to go into the locker room and deliver the message.

Beyond the irony, it is a perfect move in communication terms, and once again one that several mainstream parties could have made earlier, for their own political reasons. The PNL, for instance, after the president tried to solve the government-formation puzzle with others instead of Bolojan, or the USR, either in the name of standing up to the system or simply because people are fed up with the mess politicians have gotten themselves into and failed to climb out of in five months. Today marks exactly five months since the Bolojan government fell, and since then Romania has been waiting for a fully empowered cabinet the way a stadium crowd waits for a goal in a match where everyone is arguing with the referee. It was in this weary mood that Simion once again sensed how to grab all the attention with a single move. In his Monday morning message he called Nicușor Dan a "Cotroceni usurper" and announced that he would not take part in the consultation. He said the AUR delegation must demand early elections and call on the president to put an end to the "handcuffs show." Simion also maintained his condition that his party will not vote for a new government until Călin Georgescu is released.

One could almost imagine the sentence ending with an "and to hell with the lot of you" — he did not say that, but that is roughly the political message of the gesture. For anyone who has spent months watching the same faces repeat the same conditions, it is an easy sell that someone has finally stood up from the table. Meanwhile, AUR is not withdrawing from the process: Dan Dungaciu and Petrișor Peiu are representing the party at the meeting, so Simion can be both outside and inside at once — rejecting the show while keeping his own people in the room. Ninety-nine percent of the public is sick of the whole thing, and let's call the remaining one percent the journalistic margin of error; Simion, for his part, is making sure he gets the biggest slice of that frustration.

The afternoon schedule is proceeding regardless: the PSD is expected at 2 p.m., AUR at 2:30, the PNL at 3, the USR at 3:30, the RMDSZ at 4, followed by the minorities' group and the other parliamentary factions. After the consultations, the president intends to name a new prime ministerial candidate. After the failed government-formation attempts by Eugen Tomac, Adrian Veștea and Siegfried Mureșan, this will already be the fourth try — soon there could be a separate league for prime-minister designates who never make it to government.

The PSD is still nominating Sorin Grindeanu and wants to back a government it is itself part of. The PNL is not preparing a new name but is waiting for the president's nomination before deciding. Bolojan has previously left open the possibility that the Liberals could give a government a confirmation vote from the opposition if that would resolve the deadlock. Within the party, however, some would return to governing together with the PSD, while the camp loyal to Bolojan is weighing the option of support from the outside. So in the Liberal locker room, they are watching not only the tactics board but also who might sit on the bench next season. The USR's position leaves even less room to maneuver: Dominic Fritz is pushing for early elections and has signaled that his party will talk to the new candidate but will not take part in a government featuring PSD ministers, nor vote for a cabinet it considers a PSD front. So both the PNL and the USR are waiting to see whom Nicușor Dan picks, but that does not mean either will vote for just anyone. The reformist camp is still trying to draw the line beyond which compromise would mean liquidating its own political credibility.

Meanwhile, possible compromise names have resurfaced in the press. According to information reported by Libertatea on Sunday evening, besides Grindeanu, the president's list also includes Finance Minister Alexandru Nazare, National Bank first deputy governor Leonardo Badea, and Liberal MEP Dan Motreanu. According to the paper's sources, the PNL could line up behind Nazare. So the list of names may grow, but a parliamentary majority will not simply sprout on its own from the Cotroceni parquet: the candidate also needs votes, and that is precisely what there is the least of to spare.

Meanwhile, the RMDSZ (Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania) keeps looking for that comfortable seat from which it can explain its "responsible compromise" to everyone. According to TVR's Monday morning summary, the alliance could even imagine supporting a minority PSD government, without backing from AUR or SOS. On paper, then, there are possible configurations, but the math has an uncomfortable way of interfering with the nice phrases: by TVR's count, the PSD, the PNL and the RMDSZ together could muster 235 parliamentary votes, only two more than needed. The PNL–USR–RMDSZ bloc together with the minorities' group, however, would have only 184, while the Mureșan cabinet actually stalled at 182 supporters.

The reformist camp is not in an easy spot, because one of the most useful tricks in political combat is when those who caused a crisis dress themselves up as peacemakers and then demand of the other side why it won't finally come to an agreement with them. In the world of Antena 3, România TV, Realitatea and similar political television circuses, this story works especially well: the PNL and the USR, for refusing compromise, become the main culprits of the problem, while the PSD is left anxiously waiting for someone to finally let it save the country. It has the same victim-blaming odor as when, in the Russia-Ukraine war, the attacked side gets asked why it won't give in: the PSD and AUR contributed to bringing down the government, and now the reformists are the ones who have to explain themselves for not rushing back into the same arrangement.

What's more, the escape route of early elections may not necessarily lead where the reformist voter would like. In an INSCOP survey conducted between September 1 and 7, among respondents who named a party preference, AUR stood at 39.7 percent, the PSD at 18.7, the PNL at 16.3, and the USR at 9. The Liberals had still reached 20.3 percent in May, and the USR 12.7 in April. So the spring momentum did not keep carrying them higher: the PNL has lost much of its May surge, and the USR's overall support is also weaker than in spring. The picture is somewhat better among voters who say they will definitely vote and name a party, where the PNL stands at 17.2 percent and the USR at 11.4, but AUR scores 40.2 percent in this group as well. That makes early elections anything but a guaranteed recipe for a strong reformist parliamentary bloc right now. This is exactly why Simion is demanding them so cheerfully: he can score results even with the table overturned, while the others argue over who should put the tablecloth back on it. Nicușor Dan is promising a new candidate, the PSD is offering the same Grindeanu again, the PNL and the USR are trying to preserve their political credibility, and the RMDSZ is after grabbing the next ministry, with the interests of Transylvanian Hungarians no longer playing any real role in this. Meanwhile, the public has long since stopped expecting a beautiful game and simply wants someone, finally, to be able to finish this match — and that is precisely the mood from which the gold-shirts can still pick up a point, even if their captain doesn't even show up at the stadium.

Ugar