Where are the Liberals in the National Liberal Party?

Only 16% of the National Liberal Party (PNL) voters (the party has reached a 16% share in the electorate’s choice) declare themselves to be entrepreneurs, business owners, or businessmen, according to a recent poll conducted by Avangarde on the Liberal voter profile. The bulk of voters are employees and retired people (over 70%). These numbers say something about the almost irreversible transformation of the PNL into a more disjointed PSD. Business people simply find it harder and harder to relate to a party that talks from morning to night, through the voices of its leaders, about increasing pensions and wages, cutting the VAT, and encouraging consumption.

Of the total number of persons polled, 56% identify as employees. We don’t know how many of the 56% are employed in the public sector and how many in private companies, but it is very likely that the liberals, which are in power, share with the PSD members a quite important budgetary clientele.

Rarely will you hear a liberal leader genuinely concerned about measures dedicated to business people, and even when they talk about these measures, such as reducing social security contributions, they are still presented as measures proposed in support of employees.

But reducing contributions does not mean that employers will automatically increase their employees’ wages, it rather reduces pressure on labor costs – which in theory creates the conditions for wage increases. However, these premises are quickly eroded by other measures, such as raising the minimum wage, which has become a PNL obsession, or the progressive taxation dreamed up by the PSD, which quickly throws all plans out the window.

Besides, there are not many top representatives of businessmen or liberal professions in the PNL. You only have to look at the leadership and you will find, with one or two exceptions, a long list of politicians who have had a long and successful career in government, doing business with the state, they and their families, who are on the boards of directors of public companies and other well-paid public offices. That doesn’t sound very liberal at all.

The leader of the PNL himself, Florin Cîțu, is a counter-example of a liberal, who has neither performed in his career as a banker (on the contrary), nor in politics. He’s not won any elections, but there he is, the head of the Liberals. He didn’t get there ” through ourselves „, as the PNL slogan has it, but through the will of President Klaus Iohannis himself. His predecessor, Ludovic Orban, had also had a long career as a public servant „through himself”, but speaking on behalf of businessmen.

Just as the polls show, there are too many employees and too few genuine entrepreneurs in the National Liberal Party. After the open partnership with the PSD, liberal politics further deteriorated. The PNL has become a kind of counter-punch to the PSD. Florin Cîțu comes out every day to declare himself against Marcel Ciolacu. He rarely has anything to say to his public, however much is still left.

The USR could take advantage of this situation. The party has repositioned itself ideologically through the voice of its interim president, Cătălin Drulă, who claims that it is the only genuine liberal party in Romania. Things are not quite like that, however, as the USR hasn’t been flooded by businessmen either, according to another Avangarde poll on the profile of the USR voter.

With only 9% business people among its supporters, and 80% employees, the „genuine liberal” party (which is at 12% in the polls) has a bit of a problem. It is true that a good part of the 60% of those employed might be predominantly working in multinationals and in the private sector. Of course, you may say, business people, will never make a critical mass in any party, be it the PNL or the USR, because they are proportionately far fewer in number than employees or other social categories.

Also partly true, in reality, business people seem to be without a platform, not represented by any political party. There is almost no party left that truly stands up for their interests. The PNL is already infected with the spirit of the PSD, the two parties seem to be fighting for the same electorate, with very little nuance. It wouldn’t be impossible to see them allied again in 2024.

The USR has stuck to the few important topics and messages (no corrupt politicians, justice, integrity) that established them as a party, but has not yet diversified its message credibly enough to break out of the 10% niche and become a mainstream party. It doesn’t yet seem to have neither the leadership nor the political maturity to make the leap, but it still has a chance if it knows how to adapt its discourse and break out of the Facebook bubble into the real world.

Translated from Romanian by Ovidiu Harfas. Original Article