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Alliance of Liberals and Democrats

Alianța Liberalilor și Democraților
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats Alianța Liberalilor și Democraților
Founder	Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu
Founded	19 June 2015
Dissolved	22 March 2022
Merger of	Liberal Reformist Party (PLR) and Conservative Party (PC)
Merged into	National Liberal Party
Ideology	Liberalism; Conservative liberalism;
Political position	Centre to centre-right
National affiliation	PSD–ALDE Alliance (2015–2019)
Regional affiliation	Liberal South East European Network
European affiliation	Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party (2015–2019)
International affiliation	Liberal International (Observer)
Colours	Blue; Gold
Website
	alde.ro
	Politics of Romania; Political parties; Elections;

The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (Romanian: Alianța Liberalilor și Democraților, ALDE) was a minor nominally liberal political party in Romania^[1] which was officially absorbed in its entirety by the National Liberal Party (PNL), from which it initially seceded in 2015, during late March 2022.^[8] Throughout its relatively short political history, it was mostly associated with the Social Democratic Party (PSD) at governance, firstly between 2014 and 2015 and the once more for the last time between 2017 and 2019.

History

The party was founded on 19 June 2015, following a merger of the Liberal Reformist Party (PLR) and the Conservative Party (PC).^[9]^[10] On 19 November 2015, the party was admitted into the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.^[11] At the 2016 legislative election which was held on 11 December 2016, ALDE received 5.6% of the vote for the Chamber of Deputies (consequently gaining 20 seats there) as well as 6.0% of the vote at the Senate (consequently gaining 6 seats there).

On 19 December 2016, party co-presidents Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu and Daniel Constantin signed an collaboration protocol with the Social Democratic Party (PSD) leader Liviu Dragnea to form a new coalition government with ALDE as the junior partner.^[12] On 30 May 2019, the party withdrew from the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.^[13] The relation between ALDE Romania and ALDE Europe was strained after the ALDE-supported governmental coalition had passed laws that were deemed by the Venice Commission and ALDE Europe to undermine the independence of the judiciary.^[14] The leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, Guy Verhofstadt, had also previously participated at a rally of the then oppositional USR PLUS.^[15]

Eventually, ALDE Romania withdrew from their coalition with the Social Democratic Party (PSD) on 26 August 2019 and moved into parliamentary opposition until the end of the legislature in 2020.^[16] In 2020, ALDE merged with PRO Romania, forming a new political party under the moniker PRO Romania Social-Liberal (Romanian: PRO România Social-Liberal).^[17]

During early 2021 however, ALDE seceded from PRO Romania due to internal frictions between Ponta and Popescu-Tăriceanu as well as due to poor results from both the local and legislative elections which were held throughout the previous year.^[18] As of March 2021, ALDE is solely active at local political level in Romania, where it has a very feeble amount of mayors, county councillors, and local council councillors. It has also been in extra-parliamentary opposition to the PNL-USR PLUS-UDMR/RMDSZ government between late 2020 and late 2021.

However, during early 2022, ALDE switched to an extra-parliamentary support for the current governing grand coalition which is the National Coalition for Romania (or CNR for short) and is currently negotiating a very probable near future merger with the PNL, but without their former president Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu, who is no longer even a member of the party. In March 2022, ALDE was officially absorbed by the PNL.^[19]

Leadership

Also served as Prime Minister and Senate President.

Nº	Name Born - Died	Term start	Term end	Duration
1	Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu (1952–	19 June 2015	April 2017	1 year, 9 months and 14 days
1	Daniel Constantin (1978–	19 June 2015	April 2017	1 year, 9 months and 14 days
2	Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu (1952–	April 2017	19 October 2020	3 years, 6 months and 17 days
3	Daniel Olteanu	19 October 2020	22 March 2022	1 year, 5 months and 3 days

Electoral history

Legislative elections

Election	Chamber			Senate			Position	Aftermath
Election	Votes	%	Seats	Votes	%	Seats	Position	Aftermath
2012	did not exist¹	25 / 412	did not exist	6 / 176	—	PSD-UNPR-ALDE government (2014–2015)
2012	Opposition to the technocratic Cioloș Cabinet (2015–2017)	25 / 412		6 / 176
2016	396,386	5.62	20 / 329	423,728	6.01	9 / 136	5th	PSD-ALDE government (2017–2019)
							Opposition to PSD minority government (2019)
							Supporting PNL minority government (2019–2020)
							Opposition to PNL minority government (2020)
2020	did not compete²	Extra-parliamentary opposition to PNL-USR PLUS-UDMR government (2020–2021)
	Extra-parliamentary opposition to PNL-UDMR minority government (2021)
	Extra-parliamentary support to CNR government (2021–2022)

Notes:
¹ The MPs were previously elected on PC and PNL lists.
² Members of ALDE ran on PRO Romania list.

Local elections

National results

Election	County Councilors (CJ)			Mayors			Local Councilors (CL)			Popular vote	%	Position
Election	Votes	%	Seats	Votes	%	Seats	Votes	%	Seats	Popular vote	%	Position
2016	411,823	4.98	95 / 1,434	315,236	3.69	195 / 3,186	390,321	4.66	2,284 / 40,067	—	—	3rd
2020	209,411	2.91	15 / 1,340	124,649	1.67	15 / 3,176	189,665	2.58	861 / 39,900	—	—	7th