AUR is near 40%. That has not yet translated into policy control

The crisis can end without solving AUR’s advantage

Preda places the current deadlock within a longer political crisis rather than treating it as a single failed coalition negotiation.

In his assessment, the break became particularly visible after the annulled presidential election at the end of 2024. The more immediate problem now is the loss of trust among the pro-European parties. PSD helped remove the Bolojan government despite having participated in it, while returning to government would expose the Social Democrats to further electoral costs at a time when AUR leads them by more than twenty points.

Preda also connects the political impasse to a longer habit of postponing difficult decisions for electoral reasons. He points to the failed public-sector pay reform under Romania’s recovery plan as one example: the reform could have been adopted earlier, but successive governments delayed the political cost.

His expected outcome is therefore neither a quick political reconciliation nor, as a first option, early elections. He considers some form of compromise government more likely, potentially with a technocratic prime minister or technocratic ministers.

That assessment now has a public parallel. Bolojan said on 10 September that a transitional government relying principally on technocrats was the most feasible formula he could see.

But replacing the caretaker cabinet would not remove the political conditions that have allowed AUR to remain strong.

Preda describes AUR as a party that has effectively campaigned continuously since entering parliament in 2020. In his view, its organisational discipline and campaigning methods allow it to exploit new disputes even when the immediate source of political instability changes.

A new pro-European cabinet could therefore end one crisis without ending AUR’s electoral advantage.

“AUR can lead the polls without yet determining the policy of the state.”

Electoral strength is beginning to test the boundary of power

Preda sees roughly 40 percent as a realistic level around which AUR can remain under current conditions, while other sovereigntist parties compete for part of the same electorate and PSD retains a strong local organisation.

The latest INSCOP result fits that broader pattern better than it signals a sudden breakthrough. AUR has remained around 38–41 percent across several measurements rather than moving sharply upward in September.

Călin Georgescu also remains relevant to this electorate. Preda expects his political value for AUR to persist even if Georgescu were eventually convicted or imprisoned. That is an assessment rather than a prediction about the outcome of any legal proceedings.

The more significant development is occurring elsewhere: AUR is testing how electoral strength can be converted into institutional leverage.

On 7 September, AUR MEP Gheorghe Piperea said the party was open to formal negotiations with PSD, provided that AUR entered the government and had a say over the prime minister. Other AUR figures have taken somewhat different positions on cooperation with PSD, but party leaders have repeatedly made one condition clear: AUR does not want to support a government from which it is excluded.

There is already a narrower example of cooperation. On 8 September, AUR Senate leader Petrișor Peiu acknowledged an agreement with PSD over the interim leadership of Romania’s public radio and television, with each side supporting the other’s nominee. The arrangement did not amount to a governing pact, but it showed that issue-specific cooperation is possible.

That distinction matters. AUR can obtain individual institutional gains and cooperate with PSD on selected votes without yet possessing the executive authority needed to set Romania’s wider policy direction.

Ukraine policy has not followed AUR’s polling rise

This is where Preda draws the clearest limit around AUR’s current influence.

He does not expect PSD, PNL or Romania’s other pro-European forces to reduce support for Ukraine, alter defence policy or distance themselves from the EU simply to prevent voters moving toward AUR. If those parties were prepared to make such adjustments under electoral pressure, he argues, there has already been sufficient pressure for them to begin doing so.

For Preda, their Euro-Atlantic orientation remains an important constraint.

That does not make AUR’s polling irrelevant. It means the relevant measure is not only how many voters support the party, but what role it acquires in the institutions that make policy.

A PSD-AUR government remains uncertain. AUR figures have openly discussed negotiations, while PSD has not committed to such a formula. AUR itself also contains different views about the terms under which cooperation should occur.

For Ukraine, the distinction is important. AUR near 40 percent represents a major feature of Romania’s domestic political balance. It does not by itself show that Bucharest is preparing to change course toward Kyiv.

The next government will provide a better test. If AUR remains outside the executive, its ability to shape foreign and security policy may continue to lag behind its electoral strength. If it becomes part of a governing arrangement, the relationship between its polling power and state policy would need to be reassessed.

Expert contribution

This analysis draws on a written exchange with Adrian Eugen Preda, PhD in Political Science and Teaching Assistant at Constantin Brâncuși University of Târgu Jiu. His views are attributed throughout the article.