The Constitutional Court of Romania
\nis an arbiter that is little liked by the political class but whose rulings are
\nimplacable. On Monday, the Court established that there exists a legal conflict
\nbetween president Klaus Iohannis and Parliament over the designation of the
\nleader of the National Liberal Party Ludovic Orban as prime minister. A
\ncomplaint in this respect was filed by the Social Democratic speakers of the
\ntwo chambers of Parliament, who claimed that the president’s designation as
\nprime minister of the same person who had been dismissed last month in a
\nno-confidence vote in Parliament was contrary to Parliament’s will. The
\npresident of the Constitutional Court of Romania, the former Social Democratic
\npolitician Valer Dorneanu says, however, that the Court’s ruling is based on a
\ndifferent argument:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
I don’t know what gave you to
\nunderstand that our ruling means the president could not have designated Orban
\nas prime minister. Our argument relating to the existence of a conflict had to
\ndo with the fact that the person designated, and I’m not referring here to
\nLudovic Orban per se, was designated, or at least that’s how it transpires from
\nthe course of events, not to form a new government, but, as he himself says, to
\nmake sure one such government collapses.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The plan of the National Liberal
\nParty, which is ahead in opinion polls, was for two governments to be voted
\ndown within the space of 60 days, thus triggering the dissolution of Parliament
\nand holding early elections. An open supporter of this scenario, president
\nIohannis will not comment on the ruling of the Constitutional Court. He has
\ncriticised instead what the media have described as the anti-play practiced
\nby the Social Democratic Party:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The most legitimate solution is going
\nback to the people as soon as possible and creating a new parliamentary
\nmajority that can sustain a stable government. We cannot go on like this, in
\nconstant deadlock, with governments that change every few months. We see,
\nhowever, that the Social Democratic Party is afraid to go back to the people
\nand, although it has failed in government for the last three years, now wants
\nto prevent those who have proven they know what must be done in Romania and are
\nwilling to do it from doing their job.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The president admits that the
\nchances of early elections have now dropped to under 50%. According to experts,
\n21st of June is the deadline for holding early elections, because on
\nthis date the current Parliament enters the last six months of its mandate and
\ncan no longer be dissolved. In its three decades of post-communist democracy,
\nRomania has never had early elections, regardless of how unstable the political
\nscene might have been. Commentators say the fear of some parliamentary parties
\nthat they won’t make it to Parliament and of some MPs that they won’t win
\nanother term will prevail this time as well. (Tr.: CM)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The political confusion deepens in Romania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":82962,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[29457,19347],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-84787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-politics","tag-romania"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n