Former PM Ponta: Hope Pro Romania unites into alliance with PSD, when Dragnea is gone

Former prime minister Victor Ponta stated on Tuesday in Targoviste (rd 80 km NW of Bucharest) that he is hoping Pro Romania unites into a governing alliance with the Social Democratic Party (PSD) but with a PSD without Liviu Dragnea (the ruling party's leader, ed.n.).

"I have said ever since I formed Pro Romania, everybody around here, we are not against PSD, on the contrary, if you will, Pro Romania is hoping to make an alliance with PSD, when Liviu Dragnea is gone," Ponta affirmed.

Asked by journalists how he changed his opinion about Liviu Dragnea, after presenting themselves as a team in public, he affirmed that he was never friends with the latter.

The former premier mentioned he will carefully select the PSD leaders who want to join Pro Romania.

"There have been a few barons who courted me and I told them to remain with Dragnea," Victor Ponta claimed.

"We are 11 deputies, 10 were necessary for the group. But let me make things clear, I do not want to transfer the entire PSD to Pro Romania. Nor do I want just to take people, for what? I do not want to change the parliamentary majority. I want people whom I have worked with when I was premier and who master their domains very well to come by our side (...) so as to build some programmes, if PSD takes them and puts them into practice, very well, if it doesn't, we will fight for them. That's the idea, to make a smaller team, but not make any compromises, I don't need the father of the barons, the vote gatherer Oprisan. That's it, I have had enough," Ponta further said.