(20 Oct 2021) Romania’s Prime Minister-designate Dacian Ciolos on Wednesday failed to win parliamentary support on a new cabinet proposal, which risks prolonging an ongoing political crisis amid an acute surge of coronavirus cases.
After failing to rebuild a governing coalition after the Liberal-led government was ousted in a no-confidence vote in early October, centrist USR party leader Ciolos presented a new governing programme and a cabinet made up of USR ministers.
But his proposal for a minority government fell well short of the 234 votes it needed to pass.
Most lawmakers abstained from voting or voted against it.
If two designated prime ministers fail to form a government within 60 days, the president can dissolve parliament, which could pave the way to early elections.
The political crisis began in early September when former prime minister Florin Citu of the National Liberal Party fired a USR justice minister for not signing off on a 10 billion euro ($11.5 billion) infrastructure development programme.
USR, which has expressed concerns over transparency of the funds, reacted by quitting the three-party coalition and withdrew its support for Citu.
The October censure motion was filed by the opposition Social Democrat Party and supported by USR and the far-right AUR party.
Romania, a European Union nation of around 19 million people, is currently battling an aggressive surge of coronavirus infections amid low vaccination rates.
On Tuesday it hit pandemic highs in both infections and deaths. 574 patients died in a single day.
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