Motion of no-confidence in the Cîţu Government (update)

The coalition government in Bucharest has survived the first no-confidence motion filed by the Social Democratic opposition

Bogdan Matei, 29.06.2021, 19:14

Formed after the December parliamentary elections, the current PNL-USRPLUS-UDMR coalition had to pass two tests on Tuesday. It failed the first one, as the Constitutional Court ruled that Renate Weber would resume her position as Ombudsman. According to the Court, parliament’s decision to revoke her came in violation of the principle of the rule of law and the principle of legality and supremacy of the Constitution, as well as provisions of the law on the organization and functioning of the Ombudsman institution. When they dismissed her, the MPs of the ruling coalition blamed her for violating the Constitution and for acting more like an advocate for the Social Democratic Party, the one that actually put her in office in 2019, when it was holding the reins of power.

The majority was already preparing to install a successor, but Weber is back and will be able to exercise again her right to challenge laws and ordinances at the Constitutional Court. The majority, however, managed to pass the cohesion test, at a time when both the Liberals and USR-PLUS are holding congresses to elect new leaders, and the relations between the two parties are not at all cordial. In April, the latter had announced the Liberal Prime Minister Florin Cîţu that they were withdrawing their political support, because of the sacking of their colleague, Vlad Voiculescu, from the office of Minister of Health. In the end, a successor was found for Voiculescu, Cîţu remained Prime Minister, and USR-PLUS part of the government.

Also on Tuesday, the MPs of the governing coalition remained in their benches and did not vote on the no-confidence motion filed by the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and voted only by the other opposition, nationalist party, the Alliance for the Union of Romanians. The initiators would have needed 234 votes for the motion to pass, that is, half plus one of the total number of senators and deputies. They gathered only 201. Analysts say the result was predictable and that the motion was just a PR stunt for the left, which had the opportunity to make the government look bad for its social and wage policies.

The current government, the Social Democrats say, is leading the Romanian economy into the abyss at an astonishing speed. While for most Romanians the purchasing power is diminishing by the minute, party associates and party companies are enjoying huge profits, the PSD says. The opposition party also claims that the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which has not been approved by the European Commission yet, is a failure. In reply, the members of the majority reminded their opponents of the hallucinating policies of the past years, when the strongman of the Romanian politics was the former PSD leader Liviu Dragnea, now behind bars for acts of corruption.

Pundits believe that, regardless of the color of the protagonists, the echo of the political games they are playing in Parliament has been dimming in society. In the last legislative elections, two-thirds of the electorate did not even go to the polls. And a large opinion poll, published this month, has shown that 68.1% of Romanians believe that things in the country are going in the wrong direction and only 25% believe that the direction is the right one. (MI)