The ruling National Liberal Party
\nhas decided to begin talks with the political parties with the exception of the
\nSocial Democratic Party on the subject of calling early elections. The
\npresident of the country, Klaus Iohannis, and prime minister and leader of the
\nNational Liberal Party, Ludovic Orban, would like to hold early elections at
\nthe beginning of summer, at the same time as the local elections. For this to
\nhappen, under the Constitution, Parliament would have to reject two consecutive
\ngovernments, but this also implies that one of the parliamentary parties files
\na motion of no-confidence against the Liberal government and that the motion
\npasses. This is because the Liberals don’t think the resignation of prime
\nminister Orban is an option. The Liberal MP Florin Roman explains:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Our plan rules out this option. We
\ncan no longer continue this state of affairs in which the Social Democratic
\nParty has in effect barricaded itself in Parliament. They dynamite all of the
\ngovernment’s emergency orders and come up with projects we do not support.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The Liberals’ wish to hold early
\nelections is shared for the moment only by the USR-PLUS Alliance. The USR
\nleader, Dan Barna:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
We are waiting for the necessary
\ntalks to be able to move forward towards holding early elections, a move we see
\nnecessary in order to achieve a majority in Parliament that would allow Romania
\nto begin these reforms and which, unfortunately, are only possible at the
\nmoment through the procedure of the government’s assuming responsibility in
\nParliament.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Removed from power in October
\nfollowing a vote of no-confidence, the Social Democratic Party, which has the largest
\nnumber of MPs, rejects the idea of early elections and says it will do
\neverything in its power to oppose them. The Social Democratic MP Daniel Suciu:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
This is only a smokescreen covering
\nup the fact that for the last two months they have been unable to find
\nsolutions for something elementary, namely increasing the child allowance.
\nAlso, the minimum pension hasn’t gone up for 1 million Romanians as of
\nSeptember 1st, while teachers are caught between the minister, who
\nsays one thing, and the prime minister, who says another.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The Alliance of Liberals and
\nDemocrats, the Social Democrats’ former junior government partner, is also opposed
\nto early elections, invoking the political instability they would supposedly generate.
\nThe Pro Romania party, a splinter group from the Social Democratic Party, is
\nnot opposed, but doesn’t want to help either, while the People’s Movement Party
\nhas its own conditions, all of which makes the Liberals’ mission rather
\ndifficult. The Liberals need the early elections to take advantage of their victories
\nin the European and presidential elections. On the other hand, holding the
\nparliamentary elections next autumn, when they are due, would give the Social
\nDemocrats a respite and give them hope that the Liberals would lose popularity while
\nthey could recover some of the many percentages they lost in last year’s
\nelections. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is increasing talk in Romania about holding early parliamentary elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":84314,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[30247],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-84313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-elections"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n