The Democrat Union of Magyars in Romania (UDMR) seemed to have tipped the scale to endorse the ruling coalition during the no confidence vote.
After negotiations with the National Liberal Party, with the Liberals seeking to lure UDMR’s votes for the censure motion to be voted in Parliament on Wednesday, the Magyars didn’t seem convinced to team up with the Opposition parties to topple down the incumbent Government.
UDMR leader Kelemen Hunor met PNL chairman Ludovic Orban on Tuesday to discuss about the censure motion, with Kelemen Hunor stating after the meeting that the censure motion does not have the necessary votes to pass without breaking the PSD-ALDE coalition.
UDMR’s final stance on how it will vote will be announced on Wednesday morning.
“Of course, a rough calculation lead to only one result. At this point, those who have initiated the censure motion do not have the votes required to topple down the Government. Without PSD, without ALDE, without dismantling the coalition, the Government cannot be toppled down no matter what whoever says, as the figures do not lie. We could not provide an answer, because tomorrow morning we’ll come to a decision following a vote of the joint parliamentary groups,” Kelemen Hunor said.
On the other hand, ruling PSD-ALDE coalition seemed to have got ahead of the Opposition, serving UDMR their favorite dish. More precisely, late on Tuesday, it has been announced that that deputies will debate the draft law on the Administrative Code on Wednesday, before the censure motion, which also contains provisions which are extremely important for the Magyars, namely the elimination of the 20% threshold for the national minorities to use their native language within public institutions, such as city halls, prefectures, county and local councils. Another major provision in UDMR’s interest is the one allowing local authorities to decide how to set up bilingual name plates for streets or localities.