According to a NYT article:
In many ways, the struggle in Romania echoes the political drama playing out in other parts of the world, where leaders touting a populist agenda tapped into deep public dissatisfaction to take power, only to then push an agenda aimed more at sustaining their power than solving problems.
In Romania, the architect of the Social Democrats platform was the all-powerful party boss, Liviu Dragnea.
In the aftermath of the party’s 2016 victory, Mr. Dragnea followed a well-trodden path, promising generous social welfare programs while engaging in conspiracy-theory rhetoric.
From the outset, there were concerns that he would follow the example of other populist leaders, such as Viktor Orban in Hungary, and lead his party to use democratic means to build an “illiberal democracy,” a kind of soft authoritarianism where the essential organs of the state are compromised. [...]
The Social Democrats turned to a familiar playbook to push back. They accused their opponents of being part of a dark conspiracy, some linking it to the Hungarian-born philanthropist George Soros, who often serves as an all-purpose boogeyman for populists worldwide.
It seems a bit unusual for a center-left party to play the Soros conspiracy-theory card nowadays. What things specifically have the Romanian Social Democrats blamed on Soros?
N.B. I found myself a 2017 story that Romanian TV ran that Soros paid for protesters including children and dogs (yes dogs) to protest against the government, which seems to have been Social Democrat at the time. But it's not entirely clear who originated that story. I'm guessing there might be a not entirely unique phenomenon over there where some of the press tries to please a certain part of the political spectrum (politicians and voters) with unsubstantiated stories that politicians themselves would be reluctant to openly express...