The „Dragnization” of Ciolacu

Marcel Ciolacu, leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), has visibly changed in the half year he has spent as prime minister. Before ascending to the helm at Victoria Palace, I had a discussion about the virus of power with an experienced PSD politician. I told him then that within the government’s walls, in the old wainscoting that lines the prime minister’s office, there lurks a lethal microbe. This microbe has infected nearly all who came before him. The first symptom is a dangerous swelling of the head.

Once settled, the disease progresses with the help of sycophants and opportunists. A motley fauna begins to swarm from the first day around the prime minister, assuring him that he is the best, the smartest, and the wisest among all the petty politicians around. The head swells even more, until the prime minister becomes blind and deaf. He sees and hears nothing, slowly detaching from reality and dangerously transforming into a minor despot.

In fact, the swollen-headed prime minister becomes a mere instrument in the hands of greedy professional manipulators, hangers-on around all governments or opportunists newly emerged on the scene, who know how to feed his vanity in exchange for access to the perks of power. The already ill prime minister knows all this, but does nothing to awaken from the drunkenness of power that has paralyzed his survival instinct.

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In the final phase of the illness, they all come to sincerely believe that they are the state, completely forgetting how they reached its apex. From here, the fall begins, inevitably.

The seasoned PSD member assured me that Ciolacu would not succumb to this, that he has learned from the mistakes of his predecessors, and that he is astute and lucid enough to avoid becoming a second Dragnea. Even though he never became prime minister, Liviu Dragnea caught the virus of power from the walls of the government he controlled forcibly through intermediaries, whether they were named Grindeanu, Tudose, or Dăncilă.

However, the PSD member was quite mistaken about Marcel Ciolacu, despite his vast political experience.

After becoming the leader of PSD, Ciolacu signaled that he did not wish to repeat Dragnea’s mistakes. Since becoming prime minister, however, his behavior has been almost identical. Most dangerous is the coterie he has assembled around himself, with a protege greedy for money, power, and influence. For her, he is willing to ask for various favors, to intervene, to expose himself, and the barons already perceive her as a center of power in the party.

The protege has spread her sister and friends through the boards of state institutions, where they would never have reached if Ciolacu were not prime minister. A network of companies from Buzău, all connected to Ciolacu or his protege, thrives on contracts with the state, with PSD-controlled mayors. See the affair at Sector 3 revealed by G4Media.ro.

Somehow, dubious media owners or businessmen with questionable reputations have managed to penetrate the close circle of associates. They take care of the protege, the nephew, vacations, and other combinations. From different worlds and generations, the two media owners infiltrated near the prime minister have faced criminal problems in the past. No honest politician would seek their company.

Like Dragnea, Ciolacu believes everything can be arranged and bought with the help of consultants and lobbying firms. Do you remember the scandal with Romania’s ambassador to Washington during his recent visit to the United States? One of the reasons seems to have been: Ciolacu relied less on Romanian state institutions, counting more on doors opened by lobbyists. Adrian Năstase, Liviu Dragnea, and now Marcel Ciolacu believed they could buy their political survival or, as the case may be, immunity, outside the country. The first two were seriously mistaken.

Like Dragnea, Ciolacu spends significant sums to buy media silence, only that the stakes are much higher. The PSD leader has at his disposal the generous subsidy received monthly by parties from the state, which he spends largely on bribing news television, ensuring that nothing you read here will ever be debated. This is how he managed to quietly dismiss the state secretary for revolutionary issues after Recorder published his full revolutionary file, along with the big question marks related to his revolutionary activity in Buzău.

Arbitrary manipulation of power is yet another sign of „dragnization.” Liberals and PSD members are already bored with coalition meetings where they debate various issues for hours on end, only for the final decision to be made behind closed doors by Marcel Ciolacu and Nicolae Ciucă. Decisions within his own party are made no differently. At least there, he hardly consults with anyone anymore.

Recently, at coalition meetings, Ciolacu has reportedly begun to show off his skills as prime minister, another sign that his head is starting to swell.

Dragnea’s fingerprints can also be seen in legislative initiatives such as raising the threshold for tax evasion to 1 million euros. The former PSD leader had only dared to raise it to 100,000 euros, below which tax evasion is not considered a crime. Ciolacu has increased it by ten times more for the party’s clientele in an election year: free to steal under 1 million!

In terms of the economy, we find whole slogans from the Dragnea era, from economic patriotism to attacking capital and fighting multinationals, albeit in a much softer version, with promises of pension and salary increases that are difficult to cover without increasing the budget deficit beyond the thresholds agreed with the European Commission.

He has not yet started to clash with the institutions of the state, as Dragnea did, but he is not far from it. In his latest interview with România TV, I saw a very agitated Marcel Ciolacu, almost nervous, far from his proverbial calm, terribly irritated that he is not being left alone. Who is bothering him, though? What made him lose his composure?

The prayer beads beaten at Mount Athos indicate a Marcel Ciolacu who has entered the electoral campaign from the early days of the year. The PSD leader knows that in 2024 he will have to clash with Klaus Iohannis if he wants to run for president. There is no other way.

Therefore, he has begun the war with the head of state, through a deceptive maneuver, in his customary style. The PSD has pushed the information everywhere that President Klaus Iohannis has a real chance of becoming President of the European Council, in place of Charles Michel, who is due to resign to run for the European Parliament. However, these chances are in reality minimal, almost non-existent, but it will still be the PSD that will blame President Iohannis for „another failure” if he is not appointed.

The PSD is the one that is inflating the issue as much as possible today, led by Marcel Ciolacu, in order to count on new resounding failures for Klaus Iohannis in the future. This does not mean in the least that President Iohannis does not want the position of President of the European Council or that he will not try to negotiate in this regard. However, neither the liberals nor the Cotroceni Palace have made much of a fuss about it so far.

Of course, Ciolacu is not Dragnea. On the contrary. There are many things he does not do, such as demolishing the judiciary in Parliament or the media, waging war on the „parallel state,” protecting PSD barons investigated by DNA. He has returned the PSD to the European orbit and has completely renounced attacking Brussels. Ciolacu is not comparable to Dragnea or other PSD leaders in terms of business. There are no indications or information at this time that he is corrupt.

However, „dragnization” is a slow, long process that begins only after the head has swelled enough, so that the politician at the top of power, although he becomes blind and deaf, still feels that the ground is starting to slip from under his feet. Dragnization becomes complete if the PSD leader confuses governance with the struggle for personal causes until the end.