Acting president Ilie Bolojan running for a full term is becoming an increasingly plausible scenario after one of the candidates, the one who won the second largest number of votes after isolationist Calin Georgescu in November 2024, said she would step down in his favor.

The leader of the reformist opposition party USR, Elena Lasconi, who already announced her candidacy for the May presidential elections after winning second place in the annulled ballot last November, said she could consider changing her plans and supporting acting president Ilie Bolojan for the post.

Lasconi said she supported Ilie Bolojan for the prime minister seat, which better fits Bilojan’s profile, but she said she would still support him for the president job, G4media.ro reported.

The next step for Lasconi would be to discuss scenarios with the ruling coalition that could possibly involve her party entering the alliance. She has scheduled a meeting with Social Democrat (PSD) leader Marcel Ciolacu on March 6.

Elena Lasconi’s statements, made in a press conference at Targoviste on March 3, somewhere between Bucharest and the town where she serves as a mayor (Campulung Muscel), took analysts by surprise since Lasconi repeatedly insisted on her candidacy. But the idea of Bolojan running for the presidency is not new and even less unrealistic.

On the weekend before the press conference at Targoviste, Lasconi already announced she would step back in favor of another candidate: Moldovan president Maia Sandu (who holds Romanian citizenship as well). This was taken more as a new confirmation of her commitment to run in the May ballot since Maia Sandu’s candidacy is an unlikely event.

iulian@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Inquam Photos/Adriana Neagoe)