"Honest Romania”, a simple promise after 14 months in office

The program that Nicuşor Dan presented in the presidential election campaign, the "Honest Romania” Vision, remained what it was in April and May 2025: a simple electoral promise. Although 14 months have passed since Nicuşor Dan began his term as President of Romania, that vision has been diluted, and the reforms proposed by the current head of state have not taken place. Moreover, we are facing an unprecedented political and systemic crisis, which Nicuşor Dan does not seem willing to solve too quickly.

However, his diagnosis of Romania, presented last spring, remains current, which in fact represents the real problem: state institutions continue to be weak, public administration is still bureaucratic and politicized, and citizens' distrust in the state has not been replaced by the feeling that the announced change is actually happening.

Nicuşor Dan arrived at the Cotroceni Palace promising more than a change of president; he promised a change of system. The central message of his campaign was clear and strong: "Institutions serving the people, not the gangs.” However, once installed as president, Nicuşor Dan discovered that he is the head of the system and its reform cannot be done overnight. Moreover, the president has failed in 14 months to appoint the civilian heads of the intelligence services in our country. Although he is the head of the system.

On paper, "Honest Romania” was a large project. It promised a unified electoral code, the election of mayors in two rounds, fewer signatures for candidacies, better representation of the diaspora, and the administrative-territorial reorganization of the country around the development poles. It promised to reduce bureaucracy, digitize the administration, and replace promotions based on political relations with meritocratic recruitment. After a year and two months of presidential mandate, none of these reforms is not only not a reality, but has not even been started.

Mayors are still elected in a single round of voting, we do not have a unified electoral code, and access for independent candidates has not been significantly simplified. The parliamentary representation of the diaspora has not been reformed, and the administrative-territorial reorganization has not gone beyond the stage of an idea periodically repeated by the current political class. The civil service has not been freed from the influence of parties, and the citizen continues to encounter the same fragmented state, slow and often unable to communicate between its own institutions.

We note that Nicuşor Dan cannot do these things by presidential decree, because the Constitution does not allow him to reorganize the administration, modify the electoral system alone, or lead ministries. But Nicuşor Dan knew this when he wrote his electoral program. His promise was not that he would become prime minister from the Cotroceni Palace, but that he would use presidential authority to gather the political and professional forces capable of reforming the state. After 14 months, the mechanism by which this vision was to be transformed into legislation, institutions, and results is not visible.

The difference between candidate Nicuşor Dan and President Nicuşor Dan is most evident in the field of justice. In the election campaign in the spring of 2025, he talked about reforming the Judicial Inspection, meritocratic promotion of magistrates, reducing the duration of trials, strengthening the fight against grand corruption, and changing the rules for the Constitutional Court. It proposed that the judges of the CCR be appointed exclusively from among magistrates with significant experience. None of this architecture was achieved.

We could, however, record an important institutional step: corruption was introduced in the National Defense Strategy 2025-2030 as a vulnerability to state security. The strategy initiated during Nicuşor Dan's mandate and adopted by Parliament in November 2025 also includes hybrid threats, disinformation and administrative dysfunctions. It is probably the clearest point in the electoral program that has received a concrete institutional form. However, including corruption in a strategic document does not automatically mean combating it. It does not reform the Judicial Inspection, it does not change the procedures for promoting magistrates, it does not reduce the duration of trials and it does not dismantle the networks that the program spoke about under the names of the "real estate mafia”, the "timber mafia” or the great tax evasion. The strategy can indicate the direction, but it cannot replace action.

Worse for the presidential image, the appointments to the leadership of the major prosecutor's offices provoked criticism even from people who had supported Nicuşor Dan. The referendum announced among magistrates was put on hold. Instead of an undeniable relaunch of the anti-corruption fight, the first year of the presidential mandate brought controversy, justifications and the promise that results will come later.

In health, education, environment and social policies, the distance between the program proposed by Nicuşor Dan and reality is even greater. The functional electronic patient file, the digitalization of medical services, the ten-year health investment strategy and the expansion of addiction treatment centers cannot be considered achievements after the first 14 months of the presidential mandate. Nor can the reform of school programs to develop critical thinking, the structural reduction of school dropout, the sufficient expansion of early education or the professionalization of the teaching staff be considered Nicuşor Dan's balance sheet. Many are governmental attributions, but all were included in a program presented to voters as the vision of the future president.

Basically, in the first 14 months, Nicuşor Dan spent his time managing political crises, negotiating for the formation of the Government, reducing the budget deficit and trying to keep parties with divergent interests together. Nicuşor Dan helped form a pro-European coalition and refused to include AUR in a governing formula. The coalition later fell apart, and the president was forced to resume negotiations. He managed to maintain a line of demarcation from anti-Western forces, but he failed to transform the pro-European majority into a stable engine of reforms in his own program.

Fortunately for Nicuşor Dan, he still has enough time left in his current presidential term for this situation to change. One year and two months does not represent the final verdict on a five-year presidency, but it represents enough time to see if a vision begins to take on institutions, laws and results. So far, "Honest Romania” has a defense strategy, but it does not yet have the state reform that was supposed to give it substance.

Nicuşor Dan correctly described the Romania he took over. Unfortunately, after 14 months Romania still resembles too much the country described by the candidate and too little the country promised by the president.