The Chamber of Deputies has approved the request for MP Elena Udrea’s prosecution. Udrea is accused of committing two offenses of incitement to bribe taking in the file no. 121/P/2015 of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA).
147 deputies have voted to approve the petition, 96 have voted against and one has abstained. The vote was secret with balls.
Before the vote, MP Elena Udrea argued in Parliament that the files are discretionary, “to annihilate uncomfortable politicians,” and added, inter alia, that the concept of incitement to bribery is a relative one.
“Nothing good has happened in Romania in last two years. Those who want a new mandate from parliament – I hope you’ll have the courage that together in a new parliament to do what is best for the country, people expect us to be brave and do what is needed,” Elena Udrea said.
MP Udrea called on the deputies to vote in favour of the DNA request, adding that the current parliament is “the weakest and the most unprepared after 1989.”
“I come in front of you for the fourth time in the past one and a half years. I feel like in a stand-up comedy or in a stand-up tragic-comedy. I believe I have reasons to ask the Book of records to register this case. No MP has had 16 requests for remand, arrest, prosecution in one year and a half,” Udrea said.
Elena Udrea claimed she is a victim of the system and a file is ‘made up’ for her every time the system has problems and wants to cover up a problem.
“Everything that is happening to me has no connection whatsoever with justice or with the judicial. These are attempts to discredit me and to shut me down. These are part of the system’s plan to make you fearful, to make the political class afraid and to implement a huge manipulation plan to take lover the entire power,” Udrea said in the Chamber of Deputies plenum.
DNA has requested the Chamber of Deputies go-ahead for the prosecution of former Tourism Minister Elena Udrea in a file in which she is charged with instigation to bribe taking in the electoral campaign for presidential elections in 2009.