I heard Iliescu at the BBC news tonight -- he says that his mandate has a positive bottom line as Romania has evolved from being isolated during Ceausescu to being a NATO member and future member of EU. He forgot to mention though that it took us 2-3 times longer than all our neighbors and said that he had no means to do it faster (sic!)
Also he claimed he will not quit politics - something I was expecting and it will be interesting to see if he and Nastase will be able to co-lead PSD and mantain a status-quo. Nastase's had a huge chance to gain in his image by speculating from last week's gaffe - he didnot and i don't understand why, perhaps he doesn't have what it takes to fight the old man.
My bet is that sooner rather than later (perhaps in less than 2-3 years) PSD will be divided in the elderly versus the fresh blood, and Iliescu's faction will either be marginalized from PSD (unlikely since the guy likes the power) or will merge with the extremist PRM. What do you think?
Through out the years, various groups peeled off hoping to gain leverage by taking specific groups of voters with them. (PUR, PD in its day, PRM elements, etc.) That being said, when "push comes to shove" most of them "toe the party line" or "fly in formation" (whatever metaphor you prefer)
PD doesn't belong in that list. My error! Damn typo! I meant PSR.
I don't see any new face with that kind of guts and charisma that takes to do a successful "take off". Iliescu's gravitational attraction is too strong; unless he himself decides to retire, nothing dramatic will happen. But not Iliescu is the problem here on the long run. Who will replace Nastase? Do you consider Miron Mitrea as a possible next in line? Whom do you see as PSD's presidential candidate five years from now? More disturbing than PSD's uncertain future is the fact that Romania has no genuine right wing. CDR's total failure came as a natural consequence of Coposu's dissappearance, and as it would probably be the case with PSD, no one was capable of replacing a legend.
I think Iliescu is still a problem in the years to come. If Nastase manages to get rid of him, my guess is that it's likely to have a Nastase/Ponta tandem for 2009. We still have the same actors on the political arena unfortunately, but in the coming 5 years hopefully we will see some new young faces emerging. Or else....only consider the last night circus from the Parliament for electing the presidents of the chambers. :(
Of course I know nothing about last night (fortunately :)))) But I assume PSD took both chambers. So you think Nastase will survive politically until 2009. What about all those sinister characters like Mitrea? Or maybe you assume that they will drift away and eventually join PRM? How do you estimate the chances for the emergence of a competitive christian-democrat challenger for Basescu?
Unfortunately I cannot see the emergence of a new party challenger, except maybe from URR. PNT is just a joke today. It will probably again be an us versus them fight, but I do think we will have early elections sometimes next year. The political spectrum is likely to consolidate - probably we will have the extremists, the social democrats (aka former communists which will swallow PUR TV - aka former and actual "securisti"), the UDMR and the liberals (PD is going to get divided - some will migrate to PSD and some to PNL.) And yes, I think Nastase is going to be PSD's representative together with Ponta in the future. It will probably be a tough fight between him and Iliescu though. I doubt we will see Mitrea there, even though he seems to have a lot of power and combined economical interests (perhaps blackmail materials - Nastase IS to be blackmailed I think). Perhaps the latter's just wishful thinking though. :)