Romanian President Klaus Iohannis has
\neventually signed the decree allowing Deputy Prime Minister Gabriel Oprea to be
\ninterim head of government. President Iohannis had previously announced he was
\nwaiting for the medical documents proving that Prime Minister Victor Ponta was
\nunable to carry out his duties. Victor Ponta is not unable to run the
\nGovernment, he is only unable to walk, the President said before receiving the
\nmedical documents, official sources say.
\n<\/p>\n
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Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta was
\noperated on a week ago, in a clinic in Turkey, after he had suffered a knee
\ninjury during a basketball game. After the surgery Ponta announced he needed
\ntime to recover and undergo complex medical procedures. On Sunday the Prime
\nMinister said in a Facebook post, apparently his favourite communication means,
\nthat he would ask President Iohannis to agree to replace him temporarily from
\nhis prime minister position. Deputy Prime Minister for security affairs and
\nleader of the National Union for the Progress of Romania, UNPR, which is a
\njunior partner in the Government coalition dominated by Ponta’s social
\ndemocrats, Gabriel Oprea had already taken over, as of last week, the Prime
\nMinister’s tasks. <\/p>\n
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Ponta’s one-month medical leave has
\ntriggered criticism from the opposition. According to the co-president of the
\nNational Liberal Party, Alina Gorghiu, Victor Ponta has suspended himself from
\nhis position as Prime Minister. Gorghiu has once more called on Ponta to
\nresign, as the National Anti-Corruption Directorate prosecutors are
\ninvestigating him for alleged corruption. <\/p>\n
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The head of the Social Democratic Party’s
\nNational Council, Rovana Plumb, has said that the party has confidence in the
\nGovernment’s well functioning with Gabriel Oprea as interim PM. Pundits are
\nrather sceptical though, as the interim Prime Minister is one of the most
\nsophisticated and unpredictable figures in Romanian politics. Although Oprea’s
\ncentre-left party has not won any election by itself, he has proven
\nindispensable for all governments, irrespective of their political colour. <\/p>\n
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More than ten years ago, the would-be president
\nTraian Basescu openly accused Oprea, a retired general and a member of the
\nSocial Democratic Party at the time, of being the head of the former Social
\nDemocrat Prime Minister Adrian Nastase’s personal mafia. Oprea then left the
\nSocial Democratic Party, which prompted Basescu to reconsider his position
\ntowards him and agree to include the National Union for the Progress of Romania
\nin the cabinets he personally controlled, although Emil Boc and Mihai Razvan
\nUngureanu officially headed them. The government headed by the latter was
\ntoppled three years ago following a censure motion filed by the opposition,
\nsupported by the UNPR MPs. The National Union for the Progress of Romania would
\nlater join the new parliament majority controlled by the Social Democrats. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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Gabriel Oprea, who had been Victor Ponta’s
\ngodfather when he first married, has recently said the latter is a good prime
\nminister, but that the corruption scandal he is involved in is a huge problem
\nand that, had he been Victor Ponta, he would have resigned. The Deputy Prime
\nMinister has also said he supports the President’s initiatives consolidating
\nthe rule of law. It is precisely in the name of the rule of law that President
\nKlaus Iohannis has been calling on Prime Minister Victor Ponta accused of corruption
\nto resign for almost one month now, as newspapers point out.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Deputy PM Gabriel Oprea takes over prime-ministerial tasks while PM Victor Ponta is recovering from surgery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":64460,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[29404],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-64459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-gabriel-oprea"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n