Large faction breaks with Braghis, joins Lupu

Twenty-five territorial branches, reportedly representing 11,000 party members, announced on Thursday they were leaving the Social-Democratic Party, headed by Dumitru Bragis, to join the Democratic Party of ex-Speaker Marian Lupu, Info-Prim Neo reports. A statement voiced by the defectors at a press conference says their efforts to promote “genuine social values” were thwarted by “purely personal interests of the current party leader, Dumitru Braghis” and “the political business at the expense of the social-democratic values” pursued by him. “By making this decision, we wanted to show that we cannot tolerate any further to be the witnesses of how the party is being transformed into a business venture”, says Sergiu Catanoi, one of the speakers at the conference. A memorandum was signed in December 2009 in a bid to unite the Social-Democratic Party with the Democratic Party, but the merger plans were rejected by Dumitru Bragis and in some cases, according to the statement, he “resorted to personal attacks and attempts to intimidate the promoters of this idea”.