Romania without government for five months: calls for early elections

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Romanian President Nicușor Dan faces demands from allies and adversaries alike to call a snap election, the first in the country’s modern history, if his latest attempt to end five months of political paralysis fails.

The key NATO and EU member has lacked a fully functioning government since the coalition collapsed in May, and lawmakers have rejected a succession of Dan’s prime ministerial nominees.

Political parties are now weighing up whether to support Dan’s latest prime ministerial candidate, the diplomat Luca Niculescu, who must win a confidence vote in parliament within the next nine days to be confirmed in the role.

In an interview, Dan’s arch-rival on Romania’s hard right, George Simion, warned that no stable government can form without an election and accused the president of mounting a “blockade” against democracy because he is “afraid of us coming to power.”

Speaking separately to POLITICO, Dan’s most recently defeated candidate for prime minister, Member of the European Parliament Siegfried Mureșan, warned the country was already paying an economic price, with investment decisions being delayed. “Postponing early elections and staying in this stalemate situation would, at some point, also have economic negative consequences,” he said.

Bordering Ukraine, Romania has the sixth-largest population in the EU and plays a critical role in NATO’s defense of the region as home to a major military base and a U.S. missile shield site. The country has been plagued by political instability, corruption and a ballooning budget deficit in recent years, conditions that have fueled a surge in support for hard-right nationalist politics.

Since the coalition fell apart amid infighting over budget cuts in the spring, Romania’s deadlocked parliament has been unable to agree on a new government.

Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) leader Simion, a staunch euroskeptic who has called for a halt to aid for Ukraine, told POLITICO the president must face his duty and give voters a chance to end the stalemate with a fresh election, or face being ousted. His party has been leading Romania’s opinion polls for almost two years.

Simion has been building support in parliament to censure the president, which he believes will gain momentum if Niculescu fails and Dan again refuses to call fresh elections.

“Everybody says, ‘OK, if this won’t pass, we will go to snap elections,’ but they do not know Nicușor Dan as I do,” Simion said. The president is “very stubborn” and could defy calls for elections even if all parties want them, he said. “In that case we will have the numbers of signatures and votes to suspend him at least, if not sack him.”

Dan has refused to contemplate handing AUR a role in government. He defeated Simion for the presidency last year and regards his rival’s politics as a threat to Romania’s pro-Western, pro-European direction . The president says he opposes a snap election because the campaign period would delay budget reforms and healthcare funding.

‘A new Greece’

The Romanian leu has weakened against the euro in the months since the crisis blew up. Simion urged international investors to remain patient and sought to reassure them that AUR would be fiscally responsible if it won power. “Nobody wants a new Greece,” he said. “We will do everything it takes to respect our commitments to our international partners and for them to recover the debts.”

The call for an early election is gaining traction in Bucharest.

So far, the leader of Dan’s former party, the Save Romania Union, has joined politicians from the National Liberal Party, and the leader of the Social Democratic Party and AUR, in suggesting an unprecedented emergency election could be required.

George Simion has been building support in parliament to censure the president. | Robert Ghement/EPA

Dan’s latest plan still has time to work, but political feuding between parties remains a problem. The Liberals say they could support Niculescu as prime minister if the Social Democrats do not get too much influence, while the Social Democrats say they want the PM-designate to take the country in a new direction — away from the austerity policies of the outgoing Liberal premier, Ilie Bolojan.

Mureșan, a pro-EU Liberal and European People’s Party vice-president, said the economic risks of prolonging the crisis were real. He told POLITICO a snap election could be inevitable, though this is not his “preferred” option. “The political uncertainty which exists now in the country can easily transform into economic uncertainty,” Mureșan warned. “We are already now seeing investors holding back on their investments, waiting with major investment decisions before they have more certainty.”

While Mureșan said he wants Dan to succeed, he criticized the delays in resolving the longest-running crisis since the fall of communism in 1989. “Had the president moved fast in appointing a prime minister in May and not delayed the nominations, we might even have had early elections [by] now, and we would be in a situation with a new parliament, and with a stable government with the four-year agenda,” he said.

“So, clearly, the options are narrowing down and are not getting better, following the prolongation of the political crisis.”