A Dramatic No-confidence Vote

The ruling coalition made up of the Liberal Democratic Party, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania and the National Union for the Progress of Romania enjoys a comfortable parliamentary majority, at least on paper.

Consequently, the framework law on the introduction of a single payment scheme in the public sector, on which the Executive had called for a vote of confidence in Parliament and which the Social Democrats in the opposition had tried to block by means of a no-confidence motion, only needs Parliament’s approval to come into effect.


The motion needed at least 236 votes in favour to pass which is tantamount to half plus one of the total number of votes cast. As it turned out, not even the initiators of the motion cast their vote, so it was rejected with zero votes in favour and zero against.


The MPs supporting the ruling coalition refused to cast their votes, while the opposition MPs walked out, startled by an unprecedented gesture in the history of Romania parliamentary proceedings. Barely had PM Boc begun his speech, that a state-TV engineer jumped from one of the chamber’s balconies, in protest against the government’s harsh austerity measures.


Seriously injured but stable, he was rushed to the nearest hospital. His gesture overshadowed political struggle in the Romanian media. The Social Democrats claimed that the balcony episode is itself “the harshest vote of no-confidence” against Prime Minister Emil Boc, while the National Liberals said they were unwilling to keep up the war of statements in the wake of such extreme gestures.


Some voices among the ruling coalition said “the gesture was most unfortunate”, but that it should not be politicised.


The Romanian daily GANDUL sums up the story of the man who jumped from the chamber’s balcony, trying to figure out “why an even-tempered and high-spirited man should ever want to do away with himself”. The man has two children, of whom one is suffering from autism.


Against the background of severe government cutbacks, the state allowance aimed at helping him pay for his son’s therapy was diminished considerably. The daily EVENIMENTUL ZILEI cites psychologists as saying that the attempted suicide “couldn’t have picked a better spot”.


The parliament chamber was packed with all the people the man held responsible for his misfortunes, that is Romania’s politicians. The daily paper ROMANIA LIBERA translates yesterday’s dramatic event as indicative of two things: the desperation of Romanian society, on the one hand, and the lawmakers’ lack of empathy, their arrogance and self-sufficiency, on the other.