PNL leader Orban says PSD has GEO in store to ban President Iohannis from getting involved in campaign for referendum

PNL leader Ludovic Orban has said on Friday that PSD wants to silence President Klaus Iohannis during the campaign for referendum, as the Permanent Electoral Authority (AEP) has put up for public debate an emergency ordinance banning the President from having a say in regard to the referendum scheduled on May 26, digi24.ro reports.

“The PSD-ALDE’s affliction and meanness go beyond any imagination, desperate to rescue a group of criminals that lead the Romanian state. The AEP has put up for public debate a draft emergency ordinance which the Government intends to issue, drawn together with the Interior Ministry, whereby Law 3/2000 on organizing and conducting referendums is amended. This odious draft has at stake the banning of President Klaus Iohannis from having a say on the referendum he has called for May 26. This would obviously violate the Constitution and the Constitutional Court decisions on the President’s freedom of expression,” Ludovic Orban said in a press release.

Orban added that the draft ordinance put up for debate by AEP on the referendum bill, wants the law completed with this paragraph: “The public authorities have the obligation to be neutral and impartial in regard to the subject of the referendum during the campaign, being banned from having a say in favour or against the issue at stake.”

The PNL leader accuses PSD of falsely invoking, in the statement of reasons for the GEO, the code for good practice of the Venice Commission. Orban urges the Government to give up the emergency ordinance published by the AEP.

President Klaus Iohannis signed on Thursday the decree for organizing the referendum on May 26, concomitantly with the election for European Parliament.