Romania’s pro-European Prime Minister-designate Siegfried Muresan has failed to win a parliamentary vote of confidence, prolonging a political crisis seen as a boost for the rising far right.
Muresan, a liberal European Parliament member who was the latest of three designated prime ministers, secured only 182 votes out of the 233 required to secure the confidence motion on Wednesday, according to the official count.
The far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) largely boycotted the vote.
The 45-year-old had proposed what he described as a “reform-oriented” governing programme under his centre-right National Liberal Party (PNL), which teamed up with the Save Romania Union party, or USR, and the small ethnic Hungarian UDMR party.
President Nicusor Dan said he would nominate a new prime minister candidate on Monday afternoon, after holding talks with the leaders of the parliamentary parties, to avoid snap elections.
Romania saw the collapse of a pro-European coalition government in May, when governing social democrats, together with the opposition far right, ousted liberal Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan in a no-confidence motion at that time.
The far right, which comprises about a third of Parliament, threatened to impeach the president if he does not call early elections once the conditions are met.
Romania, a member of the EU and NATO that borders Ukraine, has not held snap elections since the fall of communism in 1989.
The political analyst Cristian Pirvulescu told the AFP news agency that snap elections would lead to another fragmented Parliament, but with an emboldened far right.
Source: Al Jazeera
