Romanian lawmakers narrowly approve new pro-European coalition during period of political turmoil

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romanian lawmakers on Monday voted narrowly in favor of a new pro-European coalition government led by incumbent Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu.

The move could usher in an end to a protracted political crisis in the European Union country following the annulment of a presidential election by a top court. Parliament approved the new administration in a 240-143 vote in Romania’s 466-seat legislature.

The new coalition is made up of the leftist Social Democratic Party, or PSD, the center-right National Liberal Party, PNL, the small ethnic Hungarian UDMR party and national minorities. It caps a month-long period of turmoil in which far-right nationalists made significant gains in a Dec. 1 parliamentary election, a week after a first-round presidential race saw the far-right outsider Calin Georgescu emerge as the front-runner.

“It will not be an easy mandate for the future government,” Ciolacu, whose PSD party topped the polls in the parliamentary election, said in a statement Monday.

“We are aware that we are in the midst of a deep political crisis,” he said. “It is also a crisis of trust, and this coalition aims to regain the trust of citizens, the trust of the people.”

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Romani’s 16 ministerial positions will be shared among the parties, which will hold a slim majority in the legislature. It’s widely seen as a tactical partnership to shut out far-right nationalists whose voices found fertile ground amid high living costs and a sluggish economy.

Ciolacu, who came third in the first-round presidential ballot despite polls indicating he would win the most votes, has served as prime minister since June 2023.

After parliament’s approval, President Klaus Iohannis swore in the new government and warned the new Cabinet that it’s entering a “difficult new period” in which “for many Romanians, there are major concerns.”

Romania was plunged into turmoil after Georgescu’s surprise success in the presidential race, after allegations of electoral violations and Russian interference emerged. Days before the Dec. 8 runoff, the Constitutional Court made the unprecedented move to annul the presidential race.

“We go through complicated times, but I think we all learned from mistakes of the past,” Ciolacu said. “I hope that together with my colleagues in the coalition, we’ll find the best solutions to get past the challenges we have in front of us.”

Ciolacu said that the new government would aim to quickly organize the rerun of the presidential election in which the new coalition has agreed to put forward an agreed common pro-European candidate.

Cristian Andrei, a political consultant based in Bucharest, said that the new government made up of the same political parties will likely embrace “soft populist” rhetoric such as economic patriotism, anti-austerity, and a peace solution in neighboring Ukraine to counter the rise of far-right populism.

“This will be a way to answer the concerns of many Romanians who voted for populists … but will not solve the fundamental problem of trust,” he said. “The only decisive factor now will be who and how convincing the pro-European candidates will be against this popular revolt.”

George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, which came second in the parliamentary election, said that all lawmakers from his party on Monday would vote against the Ciolacu government.

In 2021, the PSD and the PNL also formed an unlikely but increasingly strained coalition together with UDMR, which exited the Cabinet last year after a power-sharing dispute.

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Stephen McGrath reported from Warwick, England.