*Tensed meeting at PSD Iasi after Mihai Chirica’s statements. The mayor resists
Social Democrats from Iasi had a tensed meeting on Friday evening, asking their leader Mihai Chirica to give explanations after his statements on the GEO No.13 and the protests in the country; Chirica managed to keep his President position at the end of the meeting.
The meeting of the PSD Iasi members has lasted almost 3 hours, and they have decided to send a memorandum to the party and to the Government, by which the Iasi branch asserts its support for the government program; the Mayor Mihai Chirica has kept his position.
“It was a review meeting, after a tensed period. We’re not speaking only about the PSD organization, but about a tense that has accumulated at national level. It was a meeting in which I have expressed exactly my positioning as the President of the organization and as a Vice President at national level, which were the real interests of this positioning, why I didn’t make this approach, to prove that PSD keeps its dignity” Mihai Chirica stated at the end of the PSD Iasi meeting, according to Mediafax.
Chirica added that after the meeting which lasted more than 3 hours, the party is more united.
“Today, we managed to express a joint point of view. The organization is united. We are decided to contribute to the smooth running of the PSD government program” Chirica also stated.
Chirica admitted that there were colleagues who had a contrary vision to the one he had, and who appreciated that the statements of the last period actually were “an affiliation to another party”.
“This signal came also on a favorable background related to me, in the circumstances of that GEO and given that the former Minister Florin Iordache has left the Government, which can be subjectively interpreted that I was right. I would have preferred not to reach this point in which I was right for this issue, but we believe it’s a start that we can continue in a very well balanced team when it acts in public. At first, some of my colleagues had a view which somehow was contrary, according to which it I am actually affiliated to another party. During the talks, they understood that I don’t have any political interest which is subversive, or even attached to any idea of betrayal, that there’s no leading of the man Chirica to other little keys that spin anywhere, but it simply is an act of the dignified attitude, to be able to rule our organization as all the Romanian people expect us to do in this moment” stated the PSD Iasi Interim President.
When PSD President Liviu Dragnea’s statement was reminded to him, saying that Iasi will decide Mihai Chirica’s situation, the leader of the Iasi branch explained that the organization has proved its unity.
“The Iasi organization has fully proved its unity. This solidarity is not a blank check. It’s a natural, a normal one, a solidarity of communication and cooperation, so that the projects of the communities it represents become viable” Mihai Chirica added.
Part of the Social Democrats from Iasi were also present at the PSD meeting held at Iasi. At the end of the meeting, MP Camelia Gavrila stated that the meeting was “interesting, with many opinions”.
“There were explanations provided by the President of the organization, this time there were also explanations that we understood, especially those of us who work with young people, who understand the voice of the street, who understand the voice of the young people and who understand it was a moment of poor communication on the matter of the ordinances, and that’s why these fissures have been created. The conclusion is that there is a certain harmony of the organization, that the different opinions don’t mean that cleavages between us must deepen, and that there is a solidarity towards the Government and the PSD program that must be implemented, and we need more attention when laws on judiciary are issued, since it’s a sensitive field, requiring a lot of responsibility” stated the PSD MP Camelia Gavrila, according to Mediafax.
Asked if Mihai Chirica’s exclusion was taken into account, MP Camelia Gavrila answered that “it was an issue to be analyzed, discussed, clarified”.
PSD Vice President Mihai Chirica: PSD’s modernization depends on Dragnea’s attitude. Party colleagues have contacted me
Vice President of the Social Democrat party (PSD), Mihai Chirica, admits in an interview for RFI that the PSD leader Liviu Dragnea rules the party with a heavy hand, but he comments that “even children change their parents sometimes”, adding that he was contacted by colleagues who think the same – namely that PSD has suffered after the GEO 13 scandal.
“Mr. Liviu Dragnea has a ruling method which mainly has this ideology of the heavy hand, of the unique voice and of the things that are announced through a single communication path. Here, in the Romanian folk tradition, a joke circulates, saying that even children change their parents sometimes. In the end, we’ll have to find a golden mean through which we can communicate naturally between the generations which can carry forward the destiny of some parties. The heavy hand procedure had results. It has results in PSD, but also in other parties. Let’s not forget how Mr. Basescu ruled the party, when Mr. Boc was only a puppet, as everybody was saying, in the hand of a party head which later became a head of state. The same happened in our governments, PSD’s governments. When Mr. Nastase, as the President of the party, and later as a Prime-Minister, was the only voice of the party. Meanwhile, Romania has modernized. Especially after 2007, when the European integration brought us, first of all, in a conflictual situation between generations”, stated the Iasi Mayor.
He expressed his confidence in the reformation and modernization process of the party, “although this word, reform, has almost become anachronistic in Romania”.
Asked if PSD can modernize itself under Dragnea, Chirica replied: “It’s a difficult question. It depends much to the attitude that President Dragnea will continue to have related to this moment which all of us overcame. After all, we can say we overcame it. Of course we are ruffled after all this story. Nobody can deny that we became stronger. Yes, we became stronger in conceptual terms, but we haven’t become stronger at all in terms of the voters’ credibility. On the contrary, regarding Romanians’ credibility, we suffered”.
He urged Social Democrats to freely express themselves.
“If the party is able or not to modernize itself being ruled by Mr. Dragnea, depends a lot on Mr. Dagnea, too. The way in which he understands to adapt to the new configuration of today’s Romania, of the people who don’t come to vote, but yet they want to have a say. It definitely depends on the PSD leading members in particular, and on the PSD members who have the courage to freely express themselves. They don’t necessarily have to be against an idea every time. You can express your opinion on an issue that we have to do together, in an as rational as possible way”, PSD Vice President explained.
He mentioned that he was contacted by Social Democrats who see things in the same way.
“Some of my party colleagues have contacted me. We are people who think the same. Some of them are more visible, others are not, but they realize that we suddenly became winners in a large mass of people, and now we realize that the winner’s attitude must be totally different compared to what we believed until today. Nobody has tried to make me not to speak, namely to not allow me to express a standpoint. It would mean that this person doesn’t have the littlest realism. I have remained like this and I will not change myself. I am a person who attaches to a team, but not to degrade its image. I don’t believe I have degraded this team’s image. I think I’ve managed to provide a rational standpoint, in a moment when the reason seemed to go somewhere else” Chirica concluded, adding that he will not resign from PSD.
He also warned that rejecting GEO No.14 would equate to a mass suicide of PSD.
“I don’t even want to think that the PSD parliamentarians would contradict the approach of the Romanian PM, Mr. Grindeanu, in the Romanian Parliament. It would be a mass suicide of this party, a long-term exclusion from normality, and an almost lethal blow to the Romanian Social Democrat Party. Therefore, I don’t think such an option could be taken into account. I don’t even want to think about it. Under no circumstances”, Chirica stated.
