The competition over the leadership positions put up for grabs during the party’s April 19-20 Congress is set to start within PSD. The Congress will take place within Palace Hall and will be attended by approximately 4,200 delegates. Facing no direct competitor after he brought PSD to power and took over the office of Prime Minister, current PSD President Victor Ponta is confident he will be reconfirmed as party president. The only novelty is the fact that he will be elected on the basis of electronic voting, a system set to be used for the first time during next week’s congress. Another novelty is the leadership position for which Deputy Prime Minister Liviu Dragnea will run. Dragnea is set to choose between Executive President and First Vice President of PSD. According to the statute that will be adopted at the congress, the office of Secretary General currently held by Dragnea will have fewer prerogatives.
Thus, the Secretary General will no longer be elected during the Congress meeting as happens now, but will be validated by the party’s Executive Committee at the proposal of the party president. Lower Chamber MP Andrei Dolineaschi is a favorite for this office. An absolute novelty is the fact that two categories of Vice Presidents will be introduced in the statute. The first category includes those elected by regions, with eight such offices set to be created. Favorites in this category are, among others, Iasi Mayor Gheorghe Nichita, Constanta Mayor Radu Mazare and former internal affairs minister Ioan Rus. In the second category the national list is open for all, the ones that finish on the first eight places in the elections set to enter the party’s National Permanent Bureau (BPN). According to the aforementioned source, although the ballot is secret, Ponta and Dragnea did not avoid stating openly that they have a list of names that they want to see within the future BPN, Nicolae Banicioiu, Dan Sova, Titus Corlatean and Mircea Dusa being on that list. At the same time, the party’s women’s organization will have the right to have four representatives within the BPN.
Former premier Adrian Nastase, who was recently released from jail after serving eight months of the two-year sentence he received in the “Quality Trophy” case, has been invited to the Congress but it is not known whether he will accept the invitation. The members of the party’s National Council will be elected at the Congress too but at least for now no elections will be organized for the office of president of that council. That office is reserved for Nastase but the interdiction to exercise some of his civil rights, an interdiction brought about by the fact that he is a former convict, does not allow him to take back that office, at least not for now. The PSD Congress will also adopt a resolution on the absorption of UNPR.
