Elections won, trust to build; what's next at Cotroceni

For the president-elect, Nicuşor Dan, the coming days and weeks are essential for drawing the boundaries of his presidential mandate. Before or while the Central Electoral Bureau and the Constitutional Court validate his election as president of the country, Nicuşor Dan must outline his team of close advisors with whom he will consult daily at the Cotroceni Palace, a team that will subsequently be supported by the staff of the Presidential Administration. After the validation of the elections, Nicuşor Dan will take the oath of office in the joint plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate - an event that, according to information advanced by political sources cited by the national media, could take place on Monday, May 26, 2025. Once at the Cotroceni Palace, Nicuşor Dan will be able to sign the first decrees through which he will officially appoint his presidential advisors in different fields of activity. He will immediately invite the leaderships of the parliamentary political parties to the Cotroceni Palace for consultations with a view to appointing a Prime Minister in charge of forming the new Government. Before or during the consultations, the President of the country may try, through negotiations with the leaders of the parliamentary parties, to form a new majority coalition that will vote for the future Government and provide it with the necessary parliamentary conditions for adopting the legislation that the Executive will consider a priority in light of this year's challenges, including reducing the budget deficit.

All these presidential priorities are, in our opinion, subordinated, in order of their importance, to the presentation of a concrete, country-wide program, with well-established targets and implementation deadlines, a program that is necessary due to the fact that Nicuşor Dan ran independently and not as a member of any parliamentary political party. This program is probably one of the tools that will give him the opportunity to connect with the over 6 million citizens who voted for him, but also with the over 5 million voters who did not vote for him, but who want a change, a reform of the public administration and economic development and more.

Read The program that Nicuşor Dan misses

The president is the representative of the people, the voice of the people in relations with the other state authorities, but also externally, and Nicuşor Dan cannot be this without being connected with the citizens, without a credible, plausible, intelligible, realistic program regarding economic development, social harmony and let's not forget one of Călin Georgescu's contributions, moral integrity. The former candidate in the presidential elections pressed a pedal that has an authentic reality behind it: the problem of national identity and the morality of Romanian society. The almost 5.34 million votes obtained by George Simion promote this issue - of the people's return to their own way, to national identity - on the agenda of the elected president, Nicuşor Dan.

And national identity also includes the appeal to the people's religiosity, an appeal assumed by Călin Georgescu, even if the former presidential candidate proved to be a religious ignoramus. This appeal to religiosity represents a precious objective and explains the real support he received even from important representatives of the clergy of the Romanian Orthodox Church and beyond.

We believe that Nicuşor Dan can capture this support, regardless of whether he is a believer or an atheist. We are not interested in whether he goes to church or not, as long as the appeal to the people's religiosity is vital to regaining national unity. And the appeal to the religiosity of the people must be a priority for the elected president Nicuşor Dan, especially since, according to research conducted periodically by the Society for Orthodox Christian History in the Americas, our country ranks in the top four countries in the world in terms of the declared percentage of Orthodox Christians in the total population, with a percentage of 85.3% according to the latest census conducted by the National Institute of Statistics. Ignoring this unifying quality of the people would be a mistake for Nicuşor Dan, regardless of whether he, as president, is religious or not.

Another point that the new president of the country must take into account is national integrity, which has been seriously affected in the last 35 years by the corruption of the political class. Therefore, in light of the desire for state reform expressed by the voters who went to the polls on May 4 and 18, we believe that the new president of the country must also deal with this issue as a priority.

Only by taking all these aspects into account will Nicuşor Dan be able to achieve what no president has achieved in the last 25 years: drastically reducing the gap between the two parts of current Romanian society and not its aggravation.