Motto: "Before becoming history and even before taking place, a lot of major events are prepared in laboratories" As proved, a party cannot go through reform while ruling, not to mention a party - state, dominated by the rule of unanimity and by totalitarian features. PSD (the Social - Democrat Party) is such a party. In 15 years' time, this party has had several names - FSN (the Front for National Survival), FDSN (the Democrat Front of National Survival), PDSR (the Romanian Social Democrat Party) and PSD - and managed to look adaptable to changes. But it has actually been unchanged. Daddy Ion Iliescu has been prevailing in it in a Byzantine style, as he has always been careful enough to get associated with a younger leader. Adrian Nastase was Iliescu's toughest mate. Now we are going to talk about PSD only, as it is important for Romania to have the Opposition dominated by a really European party. This does not mean that the other political parties dominated by the rule of unanimity lack totalitarian features. This goes less for PNL (the National Liberal Party), as it has allowed for various opinion streams, even during its hardest times. We shall refer to the general reform of the political class some other time.   Sooner or later, there will be bloody struggle for power inside PSD. After this fight we shall learn the dominating group to rule the party. But struggle for power does not mean reform as well. And the reform does not necessarily depend on the successor. This is why the reform of PSD will have to be simultaneous to domestic revenge. And the best time possible for it is now, just after the New Year's Eve. If PSD undergoes deep reform, the party can get to rule again not four years later, but even during 2005. Which are the main forces in confrontation? Seemingly, tendency towards reform is present in all PSD layers. The wish to purify the party and eliminate those who only proclaim social democracy, but try to impose it on other too is in itself a reform project. It is the same with the other side's wish to adapt to the modern democratic society and to acknowledge market economy values. Ion Iliescu is the center of the first group. He himself implicitly admitted he wanted to get to rule PSD again. As for the second group, Nastase is the center of it. And he wishes to stay. There is also a third group of leaders who might fight to seize power. They are the so-called pragmatic, sensible party activists. They have less consideration for ethic and moral values or the values of a modern European party. What they really do is try to build a sort of social democracy by Liberal means. Mitrea, Dan Ioan Popescu and even Victor Ponta can be considered members of this last PSD wing. They are going to do their best to get to rule the party. Each of them will try hard to face the revenge sought by those who have recently been kicked out of the party, generally known as local barons. But apart from these internal efforts to win, at least one of these groups will have to try and turn PSD into a European party. Let's remember that at a certain time Adrian Nastase had got Cozmin Gusa out of the political life and given him position as general secretary of PSD, a position a lot of people had been envious of. Gusa had been meant to change the party deeply. It meant that one of the three groups became aware of danger that PSD would remain behind the times and therefore intended to take action. But all the attempts of Gusa, supported by Nastase, all his attempts to use some solutions got stuck in a wall. At last, his only successful initiative was a formal one and it only took place at foreign level: PSD was finally included in the Socialist International. Gusa turned into a burden in the end, a pain in the neck even for the initiator of this change. He was later forced to abandon fight and seek refuge in the civil society. Later on he took up politics again and joined PD (the Democrat Party). As recently proved, PD is another party lacking streams of opinions and this is why the members vote unanimously or do not vote at all. If somebody wins the bet on the PSD reform, he/ she should have seized power first. On the other hand, those who have got power will lose in a shameful manner unless they manage to reform the party in their first period in the Opposition. But the fight that is about to start is to be carefully watched, for every detail will be a clue showing PSD's chances to turn into a really European party. Even today, if we study the seemingly contradicting statements made by some of the leaders, we can initiate the evaluation of this state. And we can wonder whether Iliescu's era is gone or not.

Sorin ROSCA STANESCU