Three centre-right parties in Romania’s outgoing ruling coalition proposed European lawmaker Siegfried Muresan as candidate for prime minister on Friday. The move comes amidst a political crisis triggered by the leftist Social Democrats, who quit the coalition and teamed up with the far-right opposition to topple Liberal Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan in early May.
Political Standoff
The political standoff risks an early election in Romania, where the hard-right Alliance for Uniting Romanians is leading opinion surveys by double digits. The Social Democrats have put forward their leader, Sorin Grindeanu, as candidate for prime minister and ruled out endorsing a cabinet they are not a part of.
The leaders of all four parties in the outgoing coalition were scheduled to meet centrist President Nicusor Dan on Friday evening to discuss the next steps on backing a minority cabinet. The president has one more nomination left to make, and under Romanian law, the president can dissolve parliament and call an early election if two prime ministerial candidates fail to win parliament’s backing within 60 days of a cabinet collapse.
Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
