One-Shot Party Primaries: The Case of the Romanian Social Democrats

Abstract

While party primaries for candidate selection gain gradual popularity in established European democracies, they remain rare in Eastern Europe. This article focuses on the Romanian Social Democrats and investigates the reasons why primaries were abandoned after one use. The central argument is that this short lifespan was determined by the absence of relevant short-term benefits. A few pathologies of the primaries led to their failure: contest administration, primary regulations and high costs. The key findings are that party primaries did not produce the intended consequences when implementation was accompanied by centralised decision-making.

Personal leaders and party change: Italy in comparative perspective

“…Norway represents an exception as the procedure for nominating candidates is regulated by the 1921 Act of Nomination, which forbids the leaders from directly intervening in the selection, with the consequence that selection procedures appear highly decentralized and with no role for national leaders (Krouwel, 2012;Aylott et al, 2014). On the contrary, Romania constitutes one of the more exclusive cases as in the post-communist period members' involvement has remained very marginal, so showing an 'interrupted oligarchical inertia' (Chiru and Gherghina, 2012: 511;Gherghina, 2013). Regarding methods of candidate selection, Italy combines the two more extreme poles on the scale of inclusiveness: candidates may be selected by primaries open to all eligible voters or, in most cases, picked up by single leaders (Gallagher and Marsh, 1987;Rahat and Hazan, 2001).…”

Party members and leadership styles in new European democracies

“…In contrast, members who have recently joined the party have limited access to a set of actions, may find it hard to see beyond short-term goals and may themselves be part of transactions with the leader. For example, in the candidate selection primaries organised by the Romanian social-democrats in 2004, some members were enrolled prior to the internal elections (Gherghina, 2013). These members were part of the transactions initiated by the leaders of their branches and their assessment of leadership styles could have been easily influenced by this fact.…”

Primaries, Conventions, and Other Methods for Nominating Candidates

“…Moreover, a poorly organized primary could quickly become undemocratic by displaying ballot fraud, vote buying and bullying from party officials, leading to riots and defections within the party. An illustration occurred in Romania in 2004 (Gherghina 2013). Even in advanced democracies, some authors have warned that parties that are too inclusive run the risk of diluting their coherent ideals and losing their well-defined program (Hazan and Rahat 2010).…”