The leader of Romania’s ruling party, Liviu Dragnea, has received death threats, according to one of his closest collaborators, Darius Valcov, who serves as prime minister Viorica Dancila’s economic advisor.

Valcov says that the pressure on Dragnea and the Dancila cabinet is huge due to what they are trying to build for the country, according to Mediafax.

“We are disturbing and they (the coalition leaders – e.n.) are disturbing very much. Only I know the pressures that exist. Maybe others do to. The pressures that president Dragnea, the prime minister and (ALDE/Senate) president Tariceanu are subjected to. The pressure is huge, from death threats to family blackmail and discrediting,” Valcov said in a talk show at local online publication DC News.

He also said that some people in state institutions are part of the “shadow state”, a supposed occult structure aiming to overthrow the current ruling coalition and take over political power in Romania. The Social Democratic Party (PSD) and its leader Liviu Dragnea officially launched on a crusade against the so called “shadow state” last year and claim the justice and criminal code reforms, that have stirred so many controversies, are part of their efforts to stop the abuses of this “shadow state”, which has been harassing politicians in power with criminal investigations.

Both Liviu Dragnea and Darius Valcov have been recently sentenced to jail for corruption but the decisions against them are not final. Valcov, a former finance minister in the Victor Ponta cabinet, was sentenced to 8 years in jail at the beginning of this year.

In his interview with DC News, Valcov also claimed that in 2015 he was approached by the Russian secret service KGB to join their ranks, but that he refused. He also said the same people proposed him to betray PSD and replace Victor Ponta as prime minister. Meanwhile, he said former president Traian Basescu made him another offer: to resign as finance minister and become a vice president of the World Bank.

editor@romania-insider.com