By Claudiu Crăciun, Faculty of Political Science, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA), Bucharest.

Note: The article is based on a chapter by Claudiu Crăciun and Alexandru Filippi, « The Partisan Left and the Electoral Left: A Picture of Mutual Searching » (2025), found in a book currently in press.

On Friday [the 7th of November], the PSD held its Congress, electing a new leadership team defined more by stability and continuity than by structural change. The Congress also saw the removal of the term « progressive » from the party’s statutes and the presence of former party presidents, with a few exceptions. The event was organized against the backdrop of electoral decline, and the symbolic reunion of former leaders and the unopposed election of the president suggested that the answer to this decline is unity—unity between generations and unity between factions. Will this be enough to stop the decline? I would argue that it will not, because the PSD leadership misdiagnosed the cause of the decline and the response could not be the right one.

The PSD remains the most important party, winning the highest number of votes and seats in parliamentary elections, but long-term trends are relentless.

An	Voturi (CD)	Procent (CD)
1992	3.091.221	28,31
1996	2.836.011	23,08
2000	4.040.212	37,09
2004	3.798.607	37,13
2008	2.352.968	34,16
2016	3.221.786	45,68
2020	1.705.786	28,90
2024	2.030.144	21,96

There are numerous explanations for this decline, but the rise of AUR, which seems to have directly affected the PSD, is only a symptom of a deeper, anti-clientelist, and economically motivated revolt, a revolt that the PSD has failed to understand. During the 30 years of transition, the country’s socio-economic structure has changed. The disappearance of jobs, economic and industrial entities, and even entire communities has created a major need for intervention, support, and redistribution, all of which are essential options for the left of any type and from any period. However, the PSD’s government action supported privatization, the reduction of the state’s role in providing health, education, social assistance, and economic services, and the establishment and maintenance of a flat tax rate. The PSD, and this was a source of retrospective pride, was the party associated with the transition and integration into NATO, the EU, and the Schengen Area. It was the party that excelled administratively to the point of being considered a party-state, or what is known in political research as a cartel party.

However, these things do not matter to the masses of precarious workers, whose lives have been disrupted and sometimes destroyed by the transition to capitalism and globalization. These have transformed labor markets and created two categories of workers, either privileged or unprotected from market fluctuations. With the exception of the early transition, the PSD has never been the party that represents the many precarious workers produced by the upheavals of economic transformation. In a stricter assessment, it has even produced them. Proof of this is the diaspora, most of whom were forced to migrate for economic reasons and who, to the extent that they do so, vote against the PSD. The migration of vulnerable workers has directly eroded its electoral base, as they have formed a politically active diaspora that votes against the two major parties, the PSD and the PNL. Overlaying the electoral map with the country’s socio-economic maps completes the picture. The PSD is losing regions, counties, and localities at a steady pace under the pressure of change. The bridges do not exist; they should have already been built.

The Social Democratic Party embodies a paradox: it is the political winner of the transition, but it has always been on the defensive. Despite peaks in electoral performance, time seems to be running against it. The PSD will remain a strong party through local administrative mobilization, proposing a mix of efficiency, investment, and a social minimum. The new leadership team is another sign in this direction, with the team of vice presidents dominated by local elected officials, some of whom are young mayors. But the party is losing the opinion vote and the programmatic vote, being stuck as a support in the elderly and rural electoral pool. The stronghold strategy, which successfully withstands electoral battles, is unsuitable for mobilizing a large, changeable, precarious, and structurally suspicious electorate. Technology and social networks are accelerating this trend, nullifying the advantages of clientelist mobilization, which is based on direct dependence on central and local government resources. And the areas that are currently performing well, such as Oltenia, although they are now at the helm of the party, are themselves under threat.

Faced with this historic decline, the PSD has chosen to focus on form rather than substance. It was not progressivism that caused it to lose touch with society, but the abandonment of the economic and social struggle in favor of administrative comfort, and this was before the pandemic and the formation of the AUR. Removing the word « progressive » from the party’s statute is an unnecessary concession to the far right, conservatives, and nationalists. Affirming traditional values will not stop the decline of the PSD because this is not what fuels the AUR, which is a combination of socio-economic discontent, distrust of the state, and anger at social injustice. All of this is embodied by a self-sufficient, wealthy, influential PSD that looks down on society. Former and current PSD voters who are disappointed see the same things, and the return of some former leaders to the scene will not change that.

There are alternatives for reform, they are very complicated but not impossible. At the very least, they could draw other red lines in government, for example on raising the minimum wage and not on administrative reform that threatens their organizational base. But the great difficulty is changing the organizational model. Shock therapy would be a longer period in opposition, during which they could get rid of the opportunists who parasitize it, a period in which they could really feel the need to reconnect with society. The risk would be to be left with 15,000 loyal members, but those 15,000 would probably be a healthier basis for reconstruction than maintaining the current oversized and insincere organization. The opposition could be an opportunity to promote a different type of leadership, forged in communities rather than in bureaucracy, and to shift the debate to the classic left, the socio-economic arena, as the identity-traditionalist arena has already been claimed by AUR. Real reform could start with an honest diagnosis, otherwise the drift and confusion will continue. And time is running out.

__

Claudiu Crăciun is Lecturer in European Politics at the Faculty of Political Science, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA), Bucharest.