PSD's Dragnea: Possibility opens for PSD-ALDE joint presidential candidate

The candidate for the presidential elections in 2019 will be designated after an analysis to be concluded this autumn, and a possibility has opened for a joint candidate of the ruling Social Democratic Party - Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (PSD-ALDE), PSD national leader Liviu Dragnea said on Sunday.

"The candidate will be designated after a very rigorous and serious analysis that follows reason and not egos. The possibility of a joint PSD-ALDE candidate has opened. I discussed the matter with [ALDE national leader] Tariceanu and agreed that any variation is open, but we should think it out very well, and surely we'll talk to all of our party colleagues and see what the best chance to succeed is, So, that will be a rational and not some ego-centred, shallow pride analysis, but focused on the wish to win (...) Do you know what is very important to Romania after 2019? That the president of Romania support this development and support a better life for the Romanians; he should be a president rooting for the Romanians, because the president, at the head of this rather convoluted, complicated system, from which all kinds of misfortunes and illegalities, all sorts of abuses, has proved that the president can do bad things if he is a bad man, acting in bad faith," Dragnea told Romania TV private broadcaster in response to whether or not he is ready to join the competition for the 2019 presidential election.

He added that he did not say that the future presidential candidate will not be from the PSD: "I do not want you to misinterpret my words. The most important thing to us is for the PSD-ALDE alliance to win the election and be supported, or for both of us to have an own candidate, or we will leave this option open to explore, the possibility of a joint candidate who may be from PSD or from ALDE."

"We leave this option open in the analysis because the most important stake for 2019 is to win the election so that in 2020 we can win the general election, so we can build the majority and carry on what we have planted today, carry on the current government programme, this development programme the like of which Romania did not have," added Dragnea.

The PSD leader added that the analysis, which has already begun, is conducted separately in PSD and in ALDE, and it will be completed "in the autumn towards the end of the year." "We are in no hurry (...). We're doing it separately and we'll talk it together," Dragnea said.

He added that the candidate could be unveiled at the end of the analysis.

Dragnea also said that the analysis also takes into account the European election. AGERPRES (RO - author: Daniel Florea, editor: Nona Jalba; EN - author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Adina Panaitescu)