(Bloomberg) -- Romania’s de-facto leader Liviu Dragnea woke up to a tough new reality after voters punished his party in European Parliament elections and he headed to face a court ruling that could send him to jail.
True to his go-it-alone leadership style, he showed up by himself in a white shirt Sunday night to address supporters and denounce what he called “a hate storm” from Romanians who voted in record numbers against the ruling Social Democratic Party and its swing toward populism.
It was a rejection of his two-year effort to overhaul courts and water down a criminal code that’s sent scores of his party members to prison for corruption. He himself is banned from being premier -- though he runs the government from behind the scenes -- because of an electoral-fraud conviction. A final ruling on another abuse-of-office conviction may actually send him to jail as soon as Monday.
“For his party it’s a huge disaster,” Cristian Pirvulescu, the dean of Bucharest’s Political Science University, said by phone. “The illiberal tendencies were rejected.”
With more than 3 million Romanians -- or about one in seven -- living and working abroad, the country is among the most pro-EU members. The vote’s result contrasted with those in regional peers that Romania has increasingly been compared with -- Poland and Hungary -- where populist ruling parties scored easy victories.
After a warning from the European Commission that Bucharest could face sanctions if it doesn’t reverse its course on the judicial overhaul, voters thronged polling stations in defiance of the government. Turnout was 49 percent, a record for EU assembly elections since it joined the bloc in 2007.
The Social Democrats came in second, with about 23 percent of the vote, half of its result in the 2016 general elections. It was behind the opposition Liberal party, which won 28 percent. The upstart, anti-corruption Save Romania Union -- whose leader compares it to French President Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche! party -- leaped to an unexpected 21 percent.
“It was a hate storm, and yes, maybe we are to blame,” Dragnea told reporters in Bucharest Sunday. While he ignored calls from his rivals to step down, he added that “I’ve always taken responsibility for what I’ve done.”
The loss could be one mistake too many for the Social Democrats to accept from Dragnea. He has changed two prime ministers in as many years, triggered the largest protests since Romania’s bloody anti-communist revolution in 1989, and put the party at risk of being being kicked out from their wider EU political family.
Dragnea said any decision he takes will have to be debated with party members in the coming days.
But he might not get the chance. The Supreme Court is expected to issue a final ruling as soon as Monday on an abuse-of-office conviction that could uphold a three-and-a-half-year jail sentence and end his freedom.
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
RECOMMENDED FOR YOU
POPULAR