Political crisis in Bucharest
Save Romania Union and PLUS Alliance, the second largest party in the ruling coalition, steps down from government.
Ştefan Stoica, 07.09.2021, 14:00
In Romanian politics, centre-right coalitions have been known to work with difficulty or not at all. It hasn’t even been a year since the National Liberal Party, the Save Romania Union and PLUS Alliance and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania joined forces to form a majority, that they are already seeing their first major political crisis, one big enough to bring down the government. The ministers of the Save Romania Union and PLUS Alliance resigned from their government positions after previously filing a no-confidence motion against the government. Dan Barna, the co-president of the Alliance and until Tuesday a deputy prime minister in the cabinet led by the Liberal Florin Cîţu, explained the move:
Things cannot go on as they have, nor will they go on like this, as far as USR PLUS is concerned, because this is about the difference we want to make in Romanian politics. Florin Cîţu has blown up this coalition knowingly and cynically. He can no longer be prime minister and for this reason the USR PLUS ministers are stepping down from his cabinet.
It all started from the sudden dismissal of the Alliance’s justice minister Stelian Ion, whom the prime minister accused of blocking a large-scale investment project for local infrastructure, a project USR PLUS said it served the prime minister’s immediate interest in appeasing the local administrations controlled by the National Liberal Party and thus advance his chances of winning the battle for leadership of the party against the current leader Ludovic Orban. Stelian Ion is not the first USR PLUS minister to be dismissed by Cîţu. Last April, healthcare minister Vlad Voiculescu was sacked in the same way. The USR PLUS ministers who have resigned from the government are the minister for investments and European projects Cristian Ghinea, economy minister Claudiu Năsui, research minister Ciprian Teleman and health minister Ioana Mihăilă.
USR PLUS are not, however, withdrawing from the coalition and say they are ready to return to government if Florin Cîţu makes a step back. Enjoying his party’s political support, Florin Cîţu shows no signs of doing so. Moreover, he has fought back exploiting USR PLUS’s inexplicable move to sign a no-confidence motion alongside the ultra-nationalist Alliance for the Union of Romanians, whose leaders have so far only stood out for their tributes to some of the most sinister figures in Romanian history from the far right and for their opposition to wearing face masks and to vaccination. Florin Cîţu:
The centre-right coalition is the only one that can govern, but it’s complicated when others on the right or whom we believed to be on the right are associating themselves with an extremist party and then also want the Socialists to join them. It looks like they weren’t on the right after all, we only thought they were. We want to be able to govern and must govern. This isn’t about reconciliation, it’s about the best interests of the Romanian people. And they behaved, in my opinion, like spoiled children.
The latest political crisis couldn’t come at a worst time: hospitals are already struggling with the effects of the fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic and, with the colder months ahead, people are worried about the alarming rise in electricity prices. (CM)
