Dragnea, Liviu Nicolae, 1962–, Romanian engineer and political leader, grad. Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest, 1987. A member of the Democratic party (1996–2000) and then the Social Democratic party (PSD; 2000–), he became PSD president after Victor Ponta stepped down in 2015. Involved in local politics from 1996, Dragnea was named interior minister in 2009, but soon resigned due to political infighting. In 2012 he was first elected to the Chamber of Deputies, and then became deputy prime minister and minister of administration and regional development. He resigned in 2015 following his conviction for electoral fraud, but after he received a suspended sentence in 2016 he was reelected and became president of the Chamber of Deputies, serving until 2019. In 2018 he was found guilty of instigating abuse for securing no-show government jobs for party employees; his conviction and prison sentence were upheld in 2019. Despite holding secondary roles in the government, Dragnea was widely regarded as its de facto leader following the 2016 election.
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