The joint session of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate has debated on Tuesday the fourth censure motion against the Ponta government. The motion titled ‘Choose between Romania and Ponta, a compromised premier. Dismiss Victor Ponta!’ was rejected, although 207 MPs voted for and 8 voted against, but the ruling coalition MPs did not vote.
Some 309 MPs have attended the parliament session, while the protest organized by the Liberals in Izvor Park gathered less than 5,000 people, against the expected 15,000, due to weather conditions.
The session was chaired by parliament speakers Valeriu Zgonea and Calin Popescu Tariceanu.
The censure motion’s text was read by PNL’s parliamentary group leader Eugen Nicolaescu.
The social-democrat leaders have vowed to attend the session, but they did not cast their votes.
In his speech in parliament, PM Victor Ponta called the censure motion as being a ‘political trick’ coming from the Liberals.
Just before the session, PSD interim leader Liviu Dragnea was ironic against the protest in Izvor Park. “I don’t believe the Liberals expect from us to bring MPs to vote for the censure motion, as they don’t expect us to bring people to the protest outside,” Dragnea said.
Although it PNL had succeeded in ensuring the support of UDMR, PMP and the party lead by Mircea Geoana, it still needed some 60 votes to overturn the government.
PM Ponta: The censure motion – a failure for PNL-PDL
Prime Minister Victor Ponta on Tuesday said the censure motion was a failure for the National Liberal Party – Liberal Democrat Party (PNL-PDL, actually merged), and that important is, in his opinion, to get to work because a lot of things are to be done.
“There couldn’t be any problems, because — and this is the last time I’m saying it — it was a failure from all points of view for the PNL-PDL. They said they were to bring 15,000 persons [to a protest rally — editor’s note] and they brought 1,000; I understand there were more gendarmes and pupils there. They said they had the votes to rule, which they don’t obviously, yet this is not the great problem. The great problem is that today there was no talk about what the Government has to do on a daily basis for the peoples’ life. Namely, I believe that today we should have talked about what we should do with the salaries, what we should do with the winter heating, what we should do with the European projects, what are the effects of the VAT cut. These should have been the normal topics for a motion,” the Premier said after the Parliament rejected the censure motion initiated by the Liberals.
“The important thing is, from now on and until February, when constitutionally the Opposition could file another censure motion, I’ve decided to pull myself as much as possible out of all these useless political battles, as we could see today, and not that honourable anyhow, and I’m ready not only to use all my energy for governing, but also to explain, to answer, to say what I have done as a prime minister alongside my governmental team and next to the ruling coalition. In brief: as of today, let’s get to work, because a lot of things are to be done and it is clear that the PNL-PDL are not capable to do them,” the prime minister added.
The Liberals’ censure motion titled ‘Choose between Romania and Ponta, a compromised premier. Dismiss Victor Ponta!’ was read in parliament last week in a joint parliamentary session of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies by Deputy Eugen Nicolaescu.
According to PNL, who filed the motion, as PM Ponta has been indicted, the whole country is compromised, and the heads of the ruling coalition parties, Gabriel Oprea of the National Union for Romania’s Progress (UNPR) and Liviu Dragnea of the Social-Democratic Party (PSD) are accomplices if they keep supporting the premier.
Also last week, President Klaus Iohannis said that if the censure motion filed by the liberals passes, leading to the fall of the Government, that would be “a good thing.”
“Considering that I’m the President of Romania, I’m not involved in the censure motion, nor in the way parties negotiate it. Certainly the approval of the censure motion would be a good outcome,” the head of state explained.
According to Iohannis, a Yes vote to the no confidence motion would solve “a great problem of Romania.”
” I don’t mean to stress that I publicly support a PNL [National Liberal Party] motion, but such a motion will solve a great problem of Romania, the fact that it has an indicted prime minister. We are unique in a negative way with such a premier,” Iohannis said at the time.
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