2024-09-28 14:56:26
Securing the political future of Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis after his second and final term as head of state has become a bone of contention for the ruling coalition in Bucharest. Political tensions have risen as parliamentary and presidential elections approach, in which the coalition partners Nikolae Chuka and Marcel Çolaku will compete for the post of head of state, BTA reported.
LAW FOR ONE MAN
The Liberals decided to secure the political future of their former leader Klaus Iohannis by introducing a bill in parliament that would allow him to run on the party list for an MP or senator seat without resigning from the presidency. However, in order to push the bill through parliament, the National Liberal Party (NLP) needs the votes of its coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and while it looked like everything had already been agreed, Călăcu’s Social Democrats unexpectedly rejected the bill, Romanian media reported. media.
On Monday, the day the legislative initiative was to be discussed in the Senate Legal Committee, the SDP’s governing body, the Permanent Bureau, met and voted unanimously against it.
“It was a unanimous vote against the voting of such an initiative, because after all, we are in 2024 and a law dedicated to a single person should not exist,” SDP spokesman Lucian Romaškanu said after the meeting, as quoted by the Hotnews information site.
“This law, made for a single person, cannot be voted on and something like this cannot be voted on,” said Alfred Simonis, former president of the lower house of the Romanian Parliament and an influential member of the SDP, Digi 24 TV reported. .
WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON APRIL 3?
The liberals accused the Social Democrats of reneging on the deal. Several representatives of the NLP told local media that the change in electoral law, which would allow the president to run from a party list, was discussed at a meeting between Cholaku, Chuka and Iohannis back in April. Many even mentioned a specific date: April 3.
Prime Minister and SDP leader Marcel Cholaku admitted that there had been a political discussion on the bill, but specified that the conversation made it clear that “it is a law that concerns a single person”. Cholaku, however, denied that on April 3 had discussed the matter with Iohannis and Chuka and even published his program for that day to prove that no such meeting had taken place.
Cholaku told news site Hotnews that in April “Mr. President Iohannis wanted to be either in NATO or in the European Commission,” referring to Iohannis’s unexpectedly announced candidacy for NATO secretary general in March (which he withdrew in June) and speculation that the Romanian president is preparing to succeed Ursula von der Leyen at the head of the European Commission or for some other high post in the EU.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF A COLLABORATION
One of the proposers of the bill, Daniel Fenekiu, claimed to the Romanian section of Free Europe, however, that the bill was discussed with the SDP not only in April, but also at the end of August and the beginning of September. Fenekiu said the current behavior of the SDP “shows the true face of this party” and “what has happened is the beginning of the end of a collaboration”.
In a video feed of the village of “Gandul”, the leader of the liberals, Nicolae Chuka, said that he had spoken with Çolaku on the subject of the bill last Wednesday and specified that Çolaku had agreed and did not ask for anything in return. When asked by the journalist, “did you speak about that Iohannis – senator?”, the leader of the NLP said: “How else would we do the deed?”.
“I can’t mislead anyone when it comes to agreements, messages… unlike politicians who don’t recognize what they did a week or two ago (…) On Wednesday I met with the chairman of the SDP,” said in front of “Gandul” Nikolae Chuka and added: “After he does not recognize an issue that is between two, three people, how can we trust each other for a future coalition?!?”.
Later in the week, Nikolae Chuka told Realitatya TV, in response to a question, that “as things stand now, it is more than certain” that the current coalition between the NLP and the SDP will not continue after the parliamentary elections on December 1.
OFFENSE IS THE BEST DEFENSE
After the scandal broke out over the “Iohannis bill”, as the media in Romania called it, the liberals tried to divert public attention by attacking the SDP on other topics, notes Free Europe.
The first vice-chairman of the NLP, Raresh Bogdan, accused the SDP and Marcel Çolaku of poor utilization of European funds, delays in the National Plan for Recovery and Sustainability, and poor management of the economy, Mediafax agency reported. According to Bogdan’s Facebook post, Romania is in a dangerous economic situation similar to the crisis of 2009, and it’s all because of the Çolaku government, which is “risking everything for election bills”.
“Liberals and social democrats started fighting because of a failed political commitment (the Iohannis bill) and managed through their own statements to make an “X-ray picture” of the most important problems in the economy”, commented in “Liberatatya” in a material under the title : “What we were able to learn from the NLP-SDP scandal: long delays in the NPVU, poor absorption of European funds and poorly managed economy”. The newspaper points out that the two parties of the ruling coalition attack each other, forgetting that they are in power, with the liberals “amnesia is more pronounced, since they have been in the government of the country for almost five years”.
THE STRIKE OF JOHANNIS
As the coalition partners attacked each other domestically, from New York, where he was participating in the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, President Iohannis announced that he had not pushed for the controversial bill.
“I didn’t want a law for myself, I don’t want a law for myself, and I can tell you for sure that I will make this law not exist (…) It is not possible to make a law for one person” , the president said at the height of the scandal.
NLP sources told Free Europe that they do not understand why the president became “angry” and dealt such a “blow” to the party.
“Many of us find it difficult to understand why the president acted this way and blamed the NLP. It is clear to us that he knew about the change in the law and agreed to it at the time,” a representative of the NLP told Free Europe.
The scandal comes at a bad time for the NLP – the party is not doing well in opinion polls, and Nikolae Chuka’s percentages show that he cannot enter the second round of the presidential election, with polls placing him in 5th or 6th place , notes Free Europe.
Digi 24 TV adds that out of fear of a disastrous election result, members of the NLP are considering leaving the party.
Against this background, Klaus Iohannis announced yesterday that he will not run in the parliamentary elections, the Romanian media reported.
“We were ambushed, both by the SDP and by President Iohannis, and public opinion understood that the NLP was an appendage of the Kotrocheni presidential palace,” a representative of the NLP summarized the situation to Free Europe.
Officially, the pre-election campaign for the parliamentary elections will start on November 1, but Romania has practically been in a pre-election situation since the spring, because of the European Parliament elections on June 9, when the local elections were also held. On October 25, the pre-election campaign for the presidential elections, which will take place on November 24 and December 8, begins.