Marcel Ciolacu

Ion-Marcel Ciolacu (born 28 November 1967) is a Romanian politician who currently serves as the leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD). A previously little known politician, Ciolacu came into national prominence when he was propped up by a former leader of the Social Democratic Party to become deputy prime minister in 2018 in the cabinet of Prime Minister Mihai Tudose. Initially given this office in order to control Tudose and report of his activities to Liviu Dragnea, who had been unable to become prime minister himself and was wary of Tudose becoming a power player in the party, Ciolacu soon broke with Dragnea and became an ally of Tudose against Dragnea's leadership. When Tudose was forced to resign from office due to Dragnea's scheming, Ciolacu was marginalized.

Ciolacu once more returned to prominence in 2019 after Liviu Dragnea had been convicted on corruption charges and sent to prison to serve a 3 years, 6 months sentence. With the Social Democrats still controlling a weak majority both in the Chamber and in the Senate, Ciolacu was propped up by the new leadership to become the President of the Chamber of Deputies, succeeding Dragnea himself just one day after the latter's incarceration. Ciolacu maintained a low profile until the new leader of the PSD Viorica Dăncilă was overwhelmingly defeated in the 2019 Romanian presidential election. He joined with other PSD territory leaders to stage her downfall. On 25 November 2019, one day after the presidential election, Ciolacu visited Dăncilă at home in order to convince her to step down as party leader. Seemingly unsuccessful, Ciolacu and other party leaders forced a special party committee, where Dăncilă and the rest of her leadership were convinced to resign, lest they be excluded from the party. In the aftermath, Ciolacu was named leader of the party, firstly ad-interim, until he was confirmed in the position by the party congress the next year.

Ciolacu led the party to its victory in the 2020 Romanian legislative election but was not able to form a majority coalition in the new legislative. Other parties opposed to the PSD formed a new coalition on 23 December and formed the new government, thus pushing Ciolacu's PSD in opposition. However, in 2021, following the political crisis that led to the collapse of the Cîțu Cabinet, he managed to bring the PSD back to the government, forming a cabinet with its former rival, the National Liberal Party, thus forming the pro- presidential National Coalition for Romania.

He has been described as adhering to the ideology of left-wing nationalism and social conservatism.

Early life and education

Marcel Ciolacu was born in Buzău as the son of Ion Ciolacu, a career military pilot. In 1995 he is thought to have graduated the Ecological University of Bucharest, even though that university only received its authorization later that year. In 2008 he attended a program in Security and National Defence at the National College of Defence in Bucharest, a university regarded in the Romanian press as "diploma-factory", where many other high and low-profile politicians have also received allegedly fraudulent degrees. In 2012 he completed a master's programme in the Management of the Public Sector at the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration.

Political career

Rise in politics

Ciolacu is a founding member of PSD, back when the party was known as the National Salvation Front, in the aftermath of the Romanian Revolution of 1989. During the early nineties, Ciolacu climbed the steps in local politics and by 1996 he became the second-in-command of the Youth Organization of the party. His political mentors were Senator Ion Vasile and Buzău Mayor Constantin Boșcodeală. He remained little known, however, until the mid-2000s. In 2005 he was for several months the interim prefect of Buzau, after which he became, in turn, director of Urbis Serv and deputy mayor of Buzau (2008-2012). As deputy mayor, he was the close associate of Constantin Boșcodeală, mayor of Buzau 1996–2016. Boșcodeală was convicted in 2015 for abuse of office during the period 2002–2008, by diverting public funds to a football team and other private companies of which he was a shareholder. Boșcodeală was condemned to 5 years imprisonment (later suspended) and prohibition from future public office.

Ciolacu entered national politics in 2012 when he was first elected for a deputy seat in Parliament. In 2015 he was elected PSD president for Buzău County, replacing his mentor Boscodeala who stepped down while being investigated for corruption. Ciolacu's election was controversial. He ran against his former mentor, Senator Vasile Ion, who eventually withdrew from the race, accusing Ciolacu of rigging the internal elections. Ciolacu was re-elected to Parliament in 2016.

As Deputy Prime Minister

In 2017, almost completely unknown on the national political stage, Ciolacu was named deputy prime minister in the cabinet led by Mihai Tudose. Tudose's predecessor, Sorin Grindeanu was ousted from his position by PSD itself, a move instigated by Liviu Dragnea, then-leader of the party and of the Chamber of Deputies. Dragnea, unable to become prime minister himself in the aftermath of the landslide victory of PSD in the 2016 Romanian legislative election because of a suspended conviction for electoral fraud in 2012, was forced to find a suitable candidate for the office of prime minister, but he needed that someone to be loyal to him on a personal level. Grindeanu gradually broke off with Dragnea during his premiership, and by May 2017 the relationship between the two had deteriorated irreparably. As a consequence, Grindeanu was ordered to resign by Dragnea, an order which he refused, citing his responsibility as leader of the Executive, and not merely a party pawn. Unable to find other ways to replace Grindeanu, Dragnea ordered all other ministers in his cabinet to resign, which they did on 15 June, but not even this could make Grindeanu resign. Grindeanu was determined to fight with Dragnea until the end for control of both the party and his premiership. Nevertheless, a motion of no confidence instigated by PSD against its own government was successful. It passed with 241 votes, 8 votes more than the required 233 threshold.

Grindeanu's ousting did not leave Dragnea's power unquestioned. Previously, the government had held a 295 majority, now it was reduced to a mere 241. For the first time, Dragnea was facing strong dissent in the party at the prospect that President Klaus Iohannis would not name another PSD member to become prime minister, electing instead to force early elections. Since the procedure of calling early elections laid down in the Constitution of Romania is complicated and difficult to trigger, and seeing PSD still had the necessary majority to form another government, the president decided to name Mihai Tudose, Dragnea's newest proposal as prime minister. Tudose was not, however, Dragnea's first choice and the PSD leader needed to find ways to control him better than Grindeanu, who had shown him that the office of prime minister was strong enough to allow its holder to wrestle his power in the party away from him. For this reason, Ciolacu was named deputy prime minister in the Tudose Cabinet, in order to become Dragnea's ears in the government.

Like Tudose himself and Grindeanu before him, however, Ciolacu did not stay loyal to Dragnea for long. By the autumn of 2017, Ciolacu had entered Tudose's grasp and was now fully loyal to the prime minister. The relationship between Tudose and Dragnea started deteriorating rapidly, as had been the case with Grindeanu, but the two maintained publicly that there was no strain between them. By then, Ciolacu was firmly in the Tudose camp.

Tudose soon declared publicly that there was only one person whom he would not tolerate being removed from his cabinet: Ciolacu. In January 2018, Tudose attempted to take full control of his government by asking the resignation of his Interior minister, Carmen Dan, a Dragnea mouthpiece and loyal lieutenant. As it became quite apparent that this was another power struggle between the prime minister and the leader of the PSD, Ciolacu publicly positioned himself in the Tudose camp. Dragnea once again convened a special party meeting in order to force Tudose's resignation. Seeing that a majority of the party remained loyal to Dragnea, Tudose decided to resign to evade a motion of no confidence like his predecessor. Ciolacu handed in his own resignation from the government shortly thereafter.

First election to the Chamber presidency

After leaving the Executive, Ciolacu returned to his deputy seat in Parliament. Throughout 2018 and the first half 2019 he stayed out of the spotlight while persisting in the opposition. against Dragnea's leadership. In October 2018, the press reported an alleged physical altercation in Parliament between Ciolacu and Dragnea, but both denied the claim.

On 27 May 2019, Liviu Dragnea was convicted of abuse of power and sentenced to 3 years and six months in prison. This vacated his position as President of the Chamber of Deputies and his leadership position in the party. Ciolacu emerged once more in the public eye, seeking a path to top party leadership. The party's new leader, Viorica Dăncilă, the third prime minister named by Dragnea, was now looking for ways to cement her leadership of the party. For this, she sought the support of Ciolacu and other former opponents of Dragnea. Ciolacu accepted her offer to sponsor him as president of the Chamber of Deputies, succeeding Dragnea himself. On 29 May 2019, Ciolacu was voted the new head of the Chamber. However, his election was won only narrowly and with the support of the PSD-breakaway party, PRO Romania, and its member, former Prime Minister Mihai Tudose.

As leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD)

As leader of the Lower Chamber, Ciolacu kept a reserved and non-vocal stance. In October 2019, a motion of no confidence was initiated by the PNL-led opposition that successfully removed Dăncilă from power, even though Ciolacu maintained that the Dăncilă Cabinet would not fall. Subsequently, he reluctantly supported Viorica Dăncilă's bid to the presidency of Romania but after her failure and her historically weak result, Ciolacu went on to take control of the party. On 25 November 2019, one day after the presidential election, Marcel Ciolacu personally visited Dăncilă in her home and asked her to peacefully resign from the party's leadership, offering her an MP seat in the next legislative election.

Having initially refused, Dăncilă mulled the offer throughout the day, and on 26 November 2019 she decided to call another special party meeting where she hoped to convince the local party leaders, who were determined to oust her, to let her retain the leadership of the PSD. Ciolacu's plan was to force the dissolution of the entire leadership, so that he could become the party's interim leader. Several local party leaders resigned during the meeting in order to force Dăncilă's resignation. Dăncilă, after changing her mind twice throughout the day, decided to finally resign. Even though by the party's statute, the next in line to assume the interim leadership of the party was Eugen Teodorovici, a Dăncilă loyalist and former Minister of Finance, Ciolacu was able to become the party's leader by securing the dissolution of the entire party leadership. Following his becoming leader of the party, he announced that PSD will be led through collective leadership and that a congress will be organized in February, by which a full leader will be appointed.

Ciolacu was expected to run for a full term as leader of PSD at its Congress on February 29, 2020, but the Congress was postponed to March 21 due to the emergence of COVID-19 pandemic in Romania. In early March, they announced plans to move the Congress online in light of the epidemic-related ban of gatherings of more than 1000 people. Ultimately, the Congress took place on 22 August 2020 and resulted in Ciolacu's election as leader of PSD, defeating Eugen Teodorovici on an overwhelming 1310–91 margin.

Controversies

Mecan Construct Investigation

In 2009, the Court of Accounts Buzau found that a construction company in the municipality of Buzau, Urbis Serv, headed by Marcel Ciolacu between 2007 and 2008, caused an approximately €1.3 million overcharge for street and sidewalk construction projects through an illegal contract with a company owned by a party colleague. The company, Mecan Construct, was owned by former PSD County Councilor Dumitru Dobrică.

Ciolacu was accused of conflict of interest causing damages to the municipality by inflating the Mecan contract by approximately 1.3 million euros.

Marcel Ciolacu stated that the ruling of the Buzău Court of Accounts was challenged in court. He stated that a criminal investigation file at the National Anticorruption Directorate Ploiești, in which the allegations regarding the contract with Mecan Construct were investigated, concluded without starting criminal proceedings against him.

Relationship with Omar Hayssam

Marcel Ciolacu was involved in a media scandal in May 2015 after a 20-year-old photograph of him with Omar Hayssam appeared in the press. In approximately 2005, Ciolacu and Hayssam had been attending a hunting party organized by the Buzau Forestry Directorate. In 2006, Omar Hayssam masterminded the kidnapping and holding for ransom of three Romanian journalists in Iraq, for which Hayssam was convicted in 2007 by the Bucharest Court of Appeal to 24 years, four months imprisonment. In addition, there was evidence that Ciolacu appeared on a list of Hayssam's debtors: In the early 2000s, Hayssam appears to have loaned Ciolacu 200 million old lei (20,000 RON). As a result of the scandal, Prime Minister Victor Ponta removed Ciolacu from the position of honorary adviser to the prime minister.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ciolacu, Marcel
1967 births
People from Buzău
Councillors in Romania
Deputy Prime Ministers of Romania
Living people
Presidents of the Chamber of Deputies (Romania)
Members of the Chamber of Deputies (Romania)
Members of the Romanian Orthodox Church
Prefects of Romania
Presidents of the Social Democratic Party (Romania)
Social Democratic Party (Romania) politicians