“WHO?” was the reaction of many Romanians when Viorica Dancila became their third prime minister in just seven months, on January 29th. That she is the first woman to run the country’s government might have been cause for celebration, if anyone thought she would really be doing the job. Few do. As soon as she had been elected, she vanished into the office of Liviu Dragnea, the leader of her party, the ruling Social Democrats (PSD). It is Mr Dragnea who calls the shots. If Ms Dancila proves unwilling or unable to do what he wants, she will be dumped.

There is only one reason why Ms Dancila is prime minister. A conviction for electoral fraud prevents Mr Dragnea from taking the job himself. He is on trial for abuse of office, and last November Romania’s powerful National Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA) indicted him for forming an “organised criminal group” with the aim of stealing EU funds. Mr Dragnea says he is innocent, but if found guilty he is likely to go to jail. That is, unless Ms Dancila can push through a proposed package of judicial reforms which would decriminalise certain categories of abuse of power and, according to the weak and divided opposition, bring Romanian justice under political control.

“Romania is starting to look like Poland and Hungary,” says Dan Barna, the leader of the Save Romania Union, an opposition party. “It is not a matter of ideology, but a bunch of guys with problems with the law, so they want to change the law for themselves.” Five of Ms Dancila’s cabinet have been or are being investigated for corruption. The former PSD mayor of Constanta, charged by the DNA with corruption, says he is applying for political asylum in Madagascar. Mr Dragnea is one of a group of Romanian politicians and businessmen who regularly holiday together in a Brazilian resort. In 2015 Costel Comana, another of the group and a former business partner of Mr Dragnea, committed suicide in an aeroplane toilet when two of his associates were arrested.

The EU backed the creation of independent instruments to tackle Romania’s corruption problem. One result was the DNA. Few, though, expected that it would be so successful. It has dispatched hundreds of high-profile people to jail. In the past five years they have included a prime minister, five ministers and 25 members of parliament. Many more are on trial. But now proposals for “justice reform” include banning the use of recordings at trials, which would, says Vlad Voiculescu, a former minister, mean “the end of the DNA as we know it”.

Before he came to lead the PSD Mr Dragnea was a local baron, in charge of his party in his native province of Teleorman. Now he is king of the barons and must keep them happy. In Alexandria, Teleorman’s capital, the PSD mayor, Victor Dragusin, says his leader is doing a fine job. It is just a shame, he thinks, that the party has made such a hash of explaining its proposed justice reforms. They will improve the delivery of justice, he reckons—and points to the case of Adrian Nastase, a former prime minister jailed “without evidence” to make an “example of him”. Politicians from the PSD frequently complain that the DNA is politically motivated, and part of a “parallel state” that includes elements of the intelligence services.

In Alexandria, Mr Dragusin shows off a new sports hall and work on university buildings. He says he wants more money from Bucharest and from the EU. Ms Dancila needs to deliver, or she could swiftly follow her predecessors into oblivion.