The political situation in Romania after the no-confidence motion

The unstable political situation in Romania fuels the scenarios that can be shaped after Opposition parties, led by the National Liberal Party, overthrew the Social Democratic Government after passing the motion of no-confidence in the Parliament.

The motion of no-confidence was passed by 238 votes for, with 5 more than necessary. It should be noted that in the The Social Democratic Party there were also MPs who voted the motion, but the difference was made by the members of the PRO-Romania group, led by the former social-democratic prime minister, Victor Ponta, with 31 votes in favor of the motion.

The passing of the motion of no-confidence comes as a surprise to many Romanians: the government led by Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dăncilă had achieved a 7% increase in GDP in 2017, a 4.9% increase in 2018, and in 2019 there is predicted a 5.5% increase, also predicted by international bodies. In addition, the increase of the pension reference point and the salary increases for the budgetary workers were good results for a left-wing government that knew how to support entrepreneurship as well: Start-Up Nation was a governmental program that funded newly established businesses with up to 40,000 Euros and contributed to the establishment of tens of thousands of SMEs and tens of thousands of new jobs.

It seems that all these were not enough for the Romanians, who in the latest elections, for the European Parliament, voted overwhelmingly for the Opposition parties, following the PSD’s struggle to change the laws of justice in favor of some groups of interest. Immediatly after those elections, the former social-democratic leader, Liviu Dragnea, was sentenced to prison and sent the party into an internal fight from which it has not yet been able to recover. The Social Democratic Party is now a political formation in which the pro-Dragnea faction is fighting with the the supporters of Viorica Dancila under the careful supervision of the former social-democratic prime minister, Victor Ponta, who is recruiting MPs or local councilors in an attempt to strengthen his political formation in the perspective of next year’s parliamentary and local elections.

The political history of Romania can be materialized in the picture below, with periods when the political left and right have succeeded one another in governing the country. The untimely coming to power of the National Liberal Party now, after the motion of no-confidence, will overturn the electoral expectations of many; yet, the political right is willing to take over the governing at a time when this can only mean eroding their percentages of confidence among the population. Most probably, the National Liberal Party will assume a transitional government until the next elections, which were last assumed by technocrats (between 2015-2016, in the gray area on the graph) and which generated the Social Democratic Party`s confidence in the electorate.

This motion of no-confidence will surely strengthen the The Social Democratic Party which will grow as an opposition party; to the same extent, Save Romania Union will also grow, a political formation that will rise in electoral preferences as the Liberals will decrease. At the same time, a possible alliance between PRO-Romania and the The Social Democratic Party for the restoration of the social democratic pole might bring back the left wing to the power in 2020.

Of course, political math is much more complicated, but in the end it is all about the desire of one or another of the political parties to govern. Romanian citizens can be in the spotlight of the politicians, but only if the politician’s attention is rewarded with votes. Meanwhile, politicians’ wealth grows exponentially accordingly to the time spent in power.

The measures announced before the motion by the future liberal ministers or by the Liberal party’s communicators, measures that include cuts of salaries and pensions, layoffs, increases in tariffs and taxes, will surely be passed through the electoral filter by the future liberal government, aware of the fact that the power is eroding massively from the percentages. of any government formation.

Romania is at a political crossroad, and Romanians will be called to the polls in 30 days to elect the country’s president. In this situation, it will be more than interesting to watch a political show that announces from now one sprinkled with electoral struggles as Romania has not had since the early ’90s.