In Romania, media outlets a reporting with near certainty that the coalition government of the National Liberal Party (PNL) and the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ) led by Liberal Prime Minister Florin Citu will fail in a parliamentary vote on Tuesday, and expect a protracted crisis due to the parties’ inability to cooperate.
The motion of censure submitted by the Social Democratic Party (PSD), which has the largest faction, is also expected to be voted on by the Save the Romania Association (USR) — the former third coalition party whose ministers stepped down — and the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR).
However, the three parties, which openly criticize each other and have a jointly comfortable majority, deny that any cooperation between them exists, only agreeing that Citu should leave.
The PSD wants early elections, the AUR a government of national unity, and the USR would restore a center-right governing coalition, but without Citu, who USR politicians say has proven incapable of coalition cooperation.
Prime MInister Citu — freshly elected the head of his party — said on Monday that he no longer ruled out that the motion of no confidence would succeed, but said in this case the PSD-led “new coalition” should clarify what kind of government it wants in order to battle the fourth wave of the coronavirus epidemic.
“Three irresponsible parties want to push Romania into chaos. One is tabling a motion of censure but does not want to rule, the other wants to overthrow a government to which it wants to return to, and the third is a party of extremists that no one knows what they want,” Citu said Monday after the PNL board meeting.
He confirmed that it was ruled out that they would once again co-govern with the USR if their former coalition partner allied with the PSD and AUR and indeed voted in the motion of censure.
According to one of the scenarios outlined in the Romanian media, President Klaus Iohannis, who has been elected head of state as a candidate for the PNL, will again nominate Florin Citu to form a government.
According to the Romanian constitution, the head of state can dissolve parliament after two unsuccessful attempts to form a government.
