OPINION AUR could have become the first party in Parliament, but George Simion said no

There are moments in politics when you don't have to do anything spectacular to win. You just have to not ruin the moment. Yesterday was one of those moments, and George Simion really managed the rare feat of losing without being forced to take any real risks.

In the cold logic of parliamentary arithmetic, the situation was almost didactic: PSD weakened, leadership contested, nerves stretched to the limit. A motion "slammed" at the right time would have opened the tap of political migration. And Sorin Grindeanu would have become, very likely, the first piece sacrificed in an internal domino. From there to a hemorrhage of parliamentarians was only one step away, and AUR could have become, almost overnight, the first party in terms of number of elected representatives.

But politics is not just about having opportunities. It is about recognizing them. By voting for the motion, AUR chose to be noisy instead of efficient. He preferred the immediate satisfaction of the "pure” opposition instead of a strategic calculation that could have redrawn the balance of power in Parliament. In other words, he chose the gesture instead of the result.

It is a form of radicalism that, paradoxically, preserves exactly the system that George Simion claims to be fighting.

The irony is that George Simion did not lose a battle. He missed an opportunity to change the game. And he did it by respecting all the rules of the game that he says he wants to destroy.

In politics, sometimes you have to know when to strike. Other times, less often, you have to know when not to strike.

Yesterday was about the second option. And the lesson seems to have passed, once again, by the AUR leader.