With Romania now led by a caretaker government after it was removed by a vote of no confidence, the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ) said that a new government should be established next week in order to adopt a proper budget.
“The first and most important thing is that the country has a proper budget in a short time,” RMDSZ president Hunor Kelemen said after consultations with Romanian president Klaus Iohannis. “We need a government that is a decent administrator, does not govern via emergency decrees, and can organize elections due in the next year and a half.”
The government led by Viorica Dăncilă was voted down on Thursday with 238 votes, five more than were necessary for the motion to pass. The Social-Democrats came to power January 4, 2017, following the December 2016 legislative elections and have since had four prime ministers (one of them only acting) and replaced 78 cabinet ministers. Dăncilă assumed office in January 2018, and her tenure was marked by a lackluster EU presidency, wage increases the Romanian budget can hardly support, and a permanent – and often acrimonious – conflict with the country’s liberal (PNL) president, Klaus Iohannis.
Two parties already (the liberal PNL and the Save Romania Union or USR, which defines itself as center-right) would prefer early elections, but RMDSZ is opposed to the idea. According to the constitution, the president can only call early elections with the consent of all parliamentary parties.
“We do not support early elections first because this would prevent the adoption of a budget and leave us without one until next spring, but it would also be unconstitutional, as elections cannot be organized by December,” Kelemen said. “The RMDSZ has its candidate for prime minister, but under certain circumstances we can also support an independent candidate.”
Title image: Romanian president Klaus Iohannis (2nd left) consulting with the RMDSZ delegation
