Blaga wants Convention sooner, in March or April

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Having advocated a National Convention in May, in December, PDL president is now thinking about holding it sooner.

‘I will propose my colleagues to try to compress time on the Steering College preparing the National Coordination Committee on February 23 and bring the Convention closer in time because, unfortunately, some of our colleagues have different priorities,’ Vasile Blaga said yesterday. In his opinion, the Convention could take place at the end of March or in early April. Blaga further noted he had so far assessed the work of almost a quarter of all county organisations and that organisational measures had been taken in most cases. Blaga’s announcement emerges in the context where the mass-media has been reporting on the local campaign conducted in support of the current PDL president by his loyal people. ‘Adevarul’ daily says PDL Prime Vice President Cezar Preda and Secretary General Gheorghe Flutur have started a local campaign to help Blaga obtain a new term at the helm of the Democratic Liberal Party. Blaga and his supporters have intensified their local agenda, travelling very often to the country with the pretext of analysing the poor results obtained by the various organisations in the December 9, 2012 parliamentary election. According to the quoted source, while in Galati on Friday, Gheorghe Flutur and Cezar Preda did not miss the opportunity to lobby for Blaga. ‘I personally say the party has to continue with Vasile Blaga, because a strong centre-right party is needed, and that party needs quite some time to consolidate itself,’ Gheorghe Flutur said. PDL Prime Vice President Cezar Preda, in his turn, said Vasile Blaga’s activity could not be assessed at that point and asked for more time for him to be able to carry out all his projects. The serving president of PDL has also lost the endorsement of another long-standing leader, Mihai Stanisoara, as well as Cristian Boureanu or Gigi Chiru, the head of Constanta Organisation. According to this particular scenario, Blaga’s likely challenger is Arad Mayor Gheorghe Falca, supported by ex-Minister Elena Udrea. Falca has recently said that, if Vasile Blaga continued as PDL leader, that would scatter away the hope of right-wing voters in Romania. The Udrea-Falca tandem is supposedly also backed by former PM Emil Boc and ex-Chamber Speaker Roberta Anastase. For the time being, however, Blaga is the only sure candidate in the PDL internal election.The PDL president yesterday was put in the situation where he had to comment in front of the journalists why PDL had not challenged the Statute of MPs to the Constitutional Court. He explained there had been ‘a non-correlation between the parliamentary groups who had not realised it was an expedited procedure’. Blaga said President Traian Basescu’s statements on Sunday, according to which the opposition was wasting all opportunities, were his opinion and he would not comment on them.

Udrea re-evaluates Tariceanu

PDL MP Elena Udrea said on RTV Sunday night she had ‘revaluated’ Calin Popescu Tariceanu, whose political performance was, according to her, better than Crin Antonescu. ‘Mr Antonescu is beginning to not count anymore. He will not run in 2014, PSD is not going to support a PNL candidate and, if PNL is no longer in the ruling arrangement at that time, Mr. Antonescu will no longer have the same tools of control over PNL he has now and probably it will be the party itself that will withdraw his candidacy in the presidential election,’ Udrea also said.