Turn of events: Nicușor Dan reportedly floated the idea of early elections

Romania's political crisis is approaching another turning point. Prime minister-designate Luca Niculescu will send his cabinet list and government program to parliament on Thursday, October 15, after which the ministerial candidates' committee hearings can begin, to be followed by a parliamentary vote of confidence. That's roughly all that's certain - and even that isn't entirely certain, which shows clearly that the crisis is still far from resolved, because the parties are behaving like a bunch of stubborn toddlers in a sandbox: each is waiting for the other to hand over the shovel first. Meanwhile, Nicușor, the oldest kid in the sandbox, has shown up too, and - as tends to happen at such moments - let out a fart right in the middle of it.

Let's start with the biggest one, the PSD. The Social Democrats currently say they would vote for the Niculescu government, but only if the PNL and the RMDSZ join in as well - in other words, if the three-party coalition is re-formed. This is being demanded by precisely those who broke up that same coalition (plus the USR) back in May with the AUR's help. Party leader Sorin Grindeanu still ruled out on Monday that the PSD would vote for either an expert or a mixed government, but according to leaks from within the party, he himself would rather stay out of government, even as the party puts increasing pressure on him to get the PSD in. According to G4Media's sources, some leaders are already demanding nine ministerial portfolios, mainly the big-budget ministries and the justice ministry, which is understandable: local barons, county council presidents and mayors used to feeding at the budgetary trough are waiting for money, and according to rumors circulating in the party's corridors, Grindeanu promised them back when the government fell in May that the PSD would soon return to power. The PSD's enlarged leadership will make the final decision on Wednesday.

Many have puzzled over why the PSD, with the AUR's help, brought down the Bolojan government. Why was it worth it for them to get their hands dirty with the far right, and why did they topple a government they themselves were part of, and in which, under the coalition agreement, they were to provide the prime minister from May 2027? At the time, they cited Bolojan's austerity package as the reason, which was already a thin excuse. Many analysts explained the move by saying that after Bolojan had put the budget in order by skinning the population alive, he was about to start reforming the state, which would have hurt a great many interests. The entire political class dreads the elimination of sinecures, and although it's unlikely that Bolojan would have turned the country into Switzerland, he could not be allowed to stir the pot either, because too much might have spilled out. This seemed like a popular and fairly credible explanation - until it emerged that the U.S. ambassador in Athens had said at a dinner in Greece that a government was going to be toppled in Romania, and that this could be done there or anywhere else. The ambassador, Kimberly Guilfoyle, happens to be so deeply embedded in the MAGA world that she owed her post in no small part to having once been Donald Trump Jr.'s fiancée. Be that as it may, the dinner took place in mid-March, and at the end of March Guilfoyle met in Bucharest with members of the Romanian political elite, including Grindeanu, then-energy minister Bogdan Ivan, and presidential adviser Florin Vlădică. In May the government fell, with the votes of precisely those who bow deepest before Trump: the AUR, the people of former PSD prime minister Victor Ponta, the PSD itself, and the quiet support of the Trump-fawning president. Anyone looking for a conspiracy theory here won't have to work hard to find one, but the entire circle of Romanian analysts is now wondering whether this really was the reason. On Tuesday the White House called on Guilfoyle to resign, while the Romanian presidential office refused to answer the question of whether adviser Vlădică had discussed toppling the Bolojan government with the ambassador.

Back to the present: Grindeanu is not thrilled about the PSD governing alone, since in his view this would take the party into "vulnerable territory." Everyone can interpret that phrase however they like - Grindeanu will probably stretch it to fit whatever he needs at any given moment. The PNL, however, has made a move that put the PSD in check: the Liberals would vote not only for an expert Niculescu government, but even for one in which PSD ministers sit alongside Niculescu - as long as they no longer govern together with the PSD. Party leader Ilie Bolojan said as much in no uncertain terms. The RMDSZ's leader, Hunor Kelemen, said something in almost the same spirit, as he has clearly reached the point where it no longer matters to him whether it's a PSD or an expert government, as long as there is one, so they can vote for it. The small difference is that the Alliance has not given a clear no to Grindeanu's invitation to join the government. Both the Liberals and the Hungarian single party have announced that they will also sign a support agreement, in which their factions pledge to vote for the new government's most important laws and measures. The PNL is building this agreement around budgetary discipline and next year's budget, and it would be valid for at least six months. The RMDSZ - let's switch over to Majális Street - put it this way:

Yes, specific requests concerning the Hungarian community were left out of the list. Anyone surprised by this should raise their hand - and keep it raised until the 2028 elections.

The USR's position is clear: they will no longer govern with the PSD, nor will they support the Niculescu government. Party leader Dominic Fritz says he doesn't believe in independent ministers, and that what will come out of this is a PSD minority government.

The arithmetic is merciless. A government-forming vote requires 233 votes. The PNL and the RMDSZ, which support the Niculescu government, have 111 MPs between them, while the PSD has 127, so without the PSD the government is certain to fail, but with it, it can pass. The equation is thus becoming somewhat simpler: the PSD, if it wants, can govern alone, with the PNL and the RMDSZ supporting it from outside. Still, I wouldn't bet on the RMDSZ not joining the PSD after all at the last minute. The usual arguments are already lined up: "we had no other choice," and "we can do more for the Hungarian community in government than in opposition."

As can be seen, nothing has changed compared to the usual mutual stalling - or at least nothing would have changed, had there not been a twist that even the most seasoned Romania experts failed to foresee, even those who happen to hail from Baia Mare. Nicușor Dan, the oldest kid in this political kindergarten and also the head of state, let out a fart in the sandbox, and then, as toddlers do, immediately acted as if it had been someone else. The president let his brilliant plan leak to the press: if Luca Niculescu cannot show a majority by Thursday, he will issue the decree dissolving parliament on Friday. Important: Nicușor himself did not say this, and the Cotroceni Palace did not respond to questions from either G4Media or HotNews. Both outlets cite official sources close to the presidential office. (In Romanian, such sources are called "sursa" - maybe we should borrow this word into Hungarian slang too, next to "borkány" - the colloquial word for jar, borrowed from the Romanian "borcan" - say, as "szurszák"?)

Still, this floated possibility should be taken seriously. The "parliamentarian" would otherwise have had a good two years left until the 2028 elections. (This too is a borrowed term: the Romanian parliament has two chambers - deputies sit in the lower one, senators in the upper one - and the common Romanian name for members of either is "parlamentar." Good word, isn't it? At least it already has a "price" tucked inside it.) But in an early election no one can be sure of keeping their seat, and who would want to give up the chance to fly off to Mykonos on a private jet every summer, paid for by the chamber of commerce? Still, it's not quite that simple: the PNL, the USR and the AUR are clearly in favor of early elections - for different reasons and with differing degrees of enthusiasm, but in favor nonetheless. And on Monday Grindeanu said that the PSD doesn't want early elections, but is prepared for them, because they may be unavoidable.

Only two weeks ago, on September 30, Nicușor not only failed to brandish the weapon of early elections, but actively reassured the PSD and everyone else who had an interest in the failure of government formation. At the time he said that early elections would prolong the crisis by five months, and that the message from the investors financing the country's debt was clear: no early elections were needed. He added that he was a responsible man who would not gamble with the country's fate. These must be strange investors indeed, if they completely changed their minds within barely two weeks - and I suspect they never said any such thing in the first place, and that the whole story is simply the mathematician-president's political derivative, the solution to which perhaps not even he knows - but at least he's set the homework.

What's more, the legal conditions for dissolution really are met. Under the Romanian constitution, the president may dissolve parliament if no government has been formed within sixty days of the first request for a vote of confidence, and at least two attempts at investiture have failed. Niculescu is already the fourth prime minister-designate since the fall of the Bolojan government: Eugen Tomac handed back his mandate even before the vote, the governments of Adrian Veștea and Siegfried Mureșan failed in parliament, and the sixty days have long since expired.

Maybe this is already too late for Nicușor, and he should have dropped this political atomic bomb sooner? Who knows. For now, things stand at this: anything could happen, all the cards are on the table, but the most likely outcome still remains that Tulip LLC will end up in government. Because someone has to prove the old Romanian joke right: elections are held in Romania so that it can be found out who the RMDSZ will govern with.

Anna Karczag