In an interview for psnews.ro, MEP Catalin Ivan (PSD) says he is not desperate about becoming the president of the party, although he has announced his intention to run several times in his recent public appearances. ‘I do not necessarily see myself there, I am 36 years old, I am not desperate about being the president of the party, I just felt obliged to come with an alternative to what Liviu Dragnea was proposing. The measures proposed by Liviu Dragnea – I see they are also supported by Victor Ponta, which worries me – are wrong. So the team I belong to, all of us who are working on a different programme, came with an alternative or will come with an alternative, because there is nothing to launch as long as we don’t know for certain if there will be a Congress or not. There will also be other options, I don’t know, I wouldn’t give any names, because, at the end of the day, it is every person’s right to say if they will stand for election or not. I know many colleagues who want to, who are considering it, who are assessing their chance, but it is for them to announce that’.
Ivan admits to the fact that his repeated public positions on Dragnea he has managed to annoy him and says ‘he came off cheap, just with a removal for the top of the organization of District 1 in Bucharest’.
‘I have only annoyed two people in the party. I have a good relationship with the members. Those I know, for I don’t know them all, we are hundreds of thousand in this party. I think that the data base contains 500,000 members. I couldn’t know them all. However, with those I know I have very good relations. I annoyed Liviu Dragnea and I was almost expelled from the party , but came off cheap, I was just replaced at District 1, an obsessive measure, and Sebastian Ghita, who is no longer in the party. It is like that, but it is, it is everywhere. I dared contract him when he offended us all by calling us communists, corrupt, Iliescu’s people and was ashamed by what we had done for years. Then I had the audacity to ask if Sebastian Ghita holds a seat on the SRI Oversight Commission, a seat that belongs to PSD. In my naiveté, I am asking: Shouldn’t PSD name someone else in that position since Sebastian Ghita is no longer a member of this parity? And that caused major disruption. And now, after the latest disclosures, if there is a suspicion – for this is what this is, having not been proved – that Mr. Coldea demanded EUR 500,000 from Mr. Ghita, or whatever it was, because these are dazzling sums, how can Sebastian Ghita still be on the SRI Oversight Commission where he is supposed to hear Coldea?’ MEP Ivan says.
I do not believe in providential leaders
Asked by the reporter who was that charismatic leader able to bring PSD together around a reform project, Catalin Ivan answered:
‘I do not believe in providential leaders. I never have. I don’t believe that a person can come up with a solution for a party, not to mention a whole country. I do believe in an idea, in a project, in a team. A team that, based on a project, endorses a person at some point in time. But I don’t believe that anyone can now come in Romania and say they hold the solution, that they are the person who will claw us all out of the current deadlock. I don’t believe there is such a person and I don’t think one will appear either’.
He said that, ahead of a future candidacy for party president, he would talk to Ion Iliescu and Adrian Nastase. ‘If Mircea Geoana had been in the party, I would have also talked to him. I think the presidents of the party are part of the history of this party and, we like them or not, they are there and will stay there. When you are the member of a party and choose to adhere to the principles of a political party you take it as it is, with its whole history, because we are here after covering a path from the Revolution until today, and that cannot be changed’, Catalin Ivan further said.
Maior can come to Congress to run if he has a project for the party
Asked if ex-SRI Director George Maior could be his main competitor in the race for the presidency of the party, Catalin Ivan said:
‘If he has a project for PSD, if he has solutions for the party to win election in 2016, he can come to the Congress’. Ivan denied the fact that people were currently mentioning such possibility in the party and admitted to it being mostly a topic of discussion outside the party. ‘He has been missing from the party for many years and, before becoming a senator, he hadn’t been there for too long either. So I’m not saying he couldn’t, but currently there is no serious debate on this topic’, Catalin Ivan said.
