Altruistic Self-Interest

In the end, while waiting to see whether the story with the Luca Niculescu government was a copy of all the others from the past six months, I realized that I was wasting my time for nothing. Instead of writing the article in the light of the facts, I can do as they do and not think about reality. Basically, every proposal/nomination for prime minister since the crisis began is like that song, “The greatpretender”. Will it be the same story this time too?

The fact is that Luca Niculescu seems to have been received more favorably by the parties than his predecessors in this hard-tried governmental crisis. Is it merely a matter of his communication and diplomatic skills, or rather the fear among some and others that the game in Parliament will end sooner than scheduled if we end up with early elections, party lists being highly volatile? You know, like the offices increasingly put up for auction and for ever shorter periods, in the days of the Phanariots…

Stretched to the limit, the loyalty of our parliamentarians is forcing its elasticity between party directives regarding the investiture vote requested by a proposed new prime minister and their own interest in worry-free exploitation of the half of their term normally remaining until the next elections.

A few days ago, news circulated that JP Morgan Chase analysts give the Niculescu government a 60% chance of passing Parliament. Everyone was surprised by the optimism of this assessment, although its exact nature remained relatively obscure. Is it a speculative assessment, a probabilistic forecast based on monitoring certain variables? And why did they feel the need to say such a thing?

The question is whether this fourth nomination for a possible prime minister in the past six months is rather a project proposing a profile for a prime minister, or rather a move based on stretching the parliamentarians’ nerves to the limit, so that enough of them will not trade the bird in the hand (the second half of their term) for government on the fence or for the medium-term electoral comeback now promised by party leaders.

Of course, Luca Niculescu’s profile helps, in the sense that he seems to be a candidature more easily accepted by political rivals than the other three previous nominations. That, plus the fact that, as we know is the local custom, autumn is when budget adjustments are counted and the existence of an incumbent government has more or less become a necessity. Most likely, it is hoped that these circumstances will provide the framework for action—in other words, the excuse—for a form of altruistic egoism in its effects on the part of a sufficiently large portion of Parliament. Those who want to protect their investment in a term that is barely halfway through and who do not yet want to concern themselves with financing a new winnable place on their own party’s lists or even with the score that the respective list might obtain in possible early elections.

Then, beyond time, costs, and other logistical difficulties, the question is whether possible early elections would or would not bring clarification to our political scene. With a professional analysis of the polls available to us, most likely no light will be shed. More likely, some rifts will deepen. Of course, some will project more power than in the previous elections, while others will be disappointed by the result. The past two years have created an electoral problem that had more or less disappeared here. Different segments of Romanian society have begun to operate with different images regarding the legitimacy of elections. Certain narratives that worked in the 2024 and 2025 elections have now lost their credibility, primarily because of the politicians who managed them.

In a day or two, we will see whether the wretched ones who do not want to incur the cost of paying for a new place on the lists, regardless of the party, will lend a hand to the investiture of a government.