Andrei Chiliman: The only way I’m leaving PNL is if they oust me!

 Powered by Max Banner Ads 

District 1 Mayor Andrei Chiliman is launching a tough attack on PNL President Crin Antonescu, saying PNL risks turning into Romania’s most anti-West party if it carries down the line of its current leader, whom he describes as a traitor of Liberal beliefs. Chiliman’s attack follows an article run by ‘Adevarul’ daily yesterday, suggesting that he, Vlad Moisescu (ex-President of the District 1 organisation of PNL) and Catalin Chereches (Baia Mare mayor) were on Antonescu’s ‘black list’. Also yesterday, ‘Evenimentul zilei’ daily said on the list of excluded member there might also be ex-Transport Minister Ludovic Orban, who had repeatedly expressed positions against the PNL leaders. ‘The information has come up a number of times lately and, unfortunately, it is perfectly credible if we look closely at the way in which the current President of PNL, Mr. George Crin Laurentiu Antonescu, leads the party in general, the way in which he understands politics,’ Chiliman states in an interview granted to hotnews.ro yesterday, answering a question whether the information regarding possible PNL exclusions seemed veridical to him. According to Chiliman, to Crin Antonescu ‘politics is restricted to his blind battle for power. A battle in which he uses any means, from nicely wrapped but empty words to thrashing statutory norms, unwritten rules of honour and common sense, in general.’ He reminded that, last summer, he had sent an open letter to the PNL interim President, Daniel Chitoiu (when Antonescu was interim President at Cotroceni and Basescu was suspended), asking for public answers to some crucial questions for PNL’s political line: closing down the Constitutional Court, ANI, DNA, ‘something that would throw us de facto into the ex-Soviet space or remaining faithful to our principles and values (…) which, if applied, mean rule of law and a liberal and capitalist country.’ ‘With that letter – Mr. Antonescu claims – I betrayed PNL. But the only traitor in this affair is he, who <betrayed> in that way his true political convictions.  If it goes down the line of Antonescu’s beliefs, PNL risks turning into the most anti-West party in Romania,’ said the Liberal, also noting that it would mean ‘a tragedy’. Asked whether he expected ex-PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu, who also seems to have been into the disgrace of the current leadership, would help preserve Liberal values, Chiliman answered: ‘I count on Calin to fight for PNL to continue to be a pro-Western party.’ On the other hand, he said he had no intention to resign from PNL: ‘The only way I’m leaving PNL is if they oust me!’