Liberal Party leader Cătălin Predoiu has been appointed prime minister following the resignation of Marcel Ciolacu whose Social Democrats have left the ruling coalition indirectly aligning themselves with a nationalist candidate ahead of a presidential runoff.
Interim President Ilie Bolojan received Marcel Ciolacu on Monday where the prime minister officially submitted his resignation.
Under the constitutional provisions, Bolojan on Tuesday signed a decree making Predoiu the interim prime minister.
Romania now has a minority government. The ethnic Hungarian party, the UDMR, which is n the coalition has announced its support for Dan in the second round as have the Liberals.
Ciolacu’s resignation and decision to leave the coalition makes a PSD-AUR government the likeliest option if Simion wins the runoff. That would mean a weakening of commitment to the EU and NATO.
“President Ilie Bolojan signed today the decree for the designation of Mr. Marian-Cătălin Predoiu as interim Prime Minister, in order to fulfill the duties of the Prime Minister until the formation of the new Government,” the Presidential Administration announced.
“I proposed to my colleagues the exit from the governing coalition, which implicitly leads to my resignation from the position of prime minister,” Marcel Ciolacu announced on Monday at the end of the meeting of the PSD leadership, specifying that this coalition is no longer legitimate, after it did not take its candidate to the second round of the presidential elections.
He was asked after the PSD meeting about the decision to leave the government and to resign from the position of prime minister. “As I saw on TV, the future president changed me anyway. Why should the future president change me? That’s how I read it.
And I saw in you, that it changed me. Anyway, the future president would change me,” Ciolacu said at the PSD headquarters.
Ciolacu said that “there will be a future coalition that will govern.” Marcel Ciolacu also said that he listened to the voice of the media and he also listened to the voice of Romanians on Sunday.
