PM Orban: PNL, in favour of calling early elections

The National Liberal Party (PNL) is in favor of calling early elections, a context in which a commission made up of party leaders will investigate the real possibilities to carry them out and will hold exploratory discussions with all political partners to find out their stance on the matter, Prime Minister Ludovic Orban, the PNL chairperson, stated on Monday, after the Liberals' Executive Committee. "Instead, it will be necessary to prepare very well for this procedure. In this regard, we have established a commission consisting of yours truly, as leader of the PNL, first vice-president Raluca Turcan and the Mr Secretary Robert Sighiartau, in order to investigate the real possibilities for organizing early elections, hold exploratory discussions with all political partners to see exactly what their stance is regarding this procedure to organize early elections," said Orban. He added that, in this regard, he will also order a comprehensive sociological analysis, given that, according to the prime minister, ''governing is extremely difficult with the current Parliament,'' which is still the mirror of the people's vote in December 2016 and which retains as the main party represented in Parliament the Social Democratic Party (PSD), that uses all possible tricks, procedures and maneuvers to sabotage the government and to try to prevent the adoption of important normative acts or to delay the entry into force of important normative acts. And also to adopt legislative proposals that will create negative effects in the economy and in society." "The local elections can be organized between May 24 and June 14. I repeat, I have said very clearly that there are certain conditions that must be met in order to trigger this early election procedure, that is, you have to have a significant number of parliamentarians who are close to 50 percent, to give you the guarantee that they will not vote on the investiture of two successive governments. Inasmuch as, if we do not have this guarantee, we could end up in the situation where we start the procedure and, at the second investiture of the Government, the PSD, Pro Romania, that do not want early elections, will vote on the Government's investiture (...) We, should we make the decision to call early elections, the PNL parliamentarians and of the other political partners who clearly support the idea of early elections will pledge not to vote on the investiture of two successive governments, so that it comes down to the constitutional situation in which the President of Romania can dissolve Parliament," Orban explained.AGERPRES(RO - author: Sorinel Penes, editor: Georgiana Tanasescu; EN - author: Simona Iacob, editor: Maria Voican)