The opposition counterattcks

The ruling coalition made up of the Liberal Democratic Party, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania and the National Union for Romania’s Progress boasts its unity and strength.

Liberal Democrat Prime Minister Emil Boc said that if the draft law on education, introduced by his government and already passed by the Chamber of Deputies, did not pass the Senate, the Executive might face a vote of confidence by Parliament.

Boc said that he was not nervous about the law passing, because a solid majority able of going ahead with reforms supported the government. Furthermore, in a general call to mobilize active party members, demoralized by the fall in popularity from 35% to 15%, the Prime Minister said he was convinced that 2012, a local and parliament election year, will be a year of the Liberal Democrats, which will bring to fruition his party’s policies.

The daily paper Romania Libera ironically remarks that quote “People can see the falseness and the absurd, but are simply content with carrying on as usual”, speaking about the crew of a ship that politically is about to sink.

The Social Democratic Party’s president Victor Ponta, whose political party now has 40% of the voting intentions, said that the education law could not pass with the government facing a confidence vote by Parliament, quoting a previous ruling of the Constitutional Court saying that such an important law cannot pass without public debate.

Encouraged by the cracks in the ruling coalition, Ponta is committed to introducing this month a no-confidence motion, one that might be favored by some members of parliament from the ruling coalition, not just the opposition.

“The Social Democratic Party’s priority is to topple the Boc government and form a government for the crisis, which will make the most urgent decisions needed to check the economic and social decline in Romania”, said Victor Ponta.

He said that after he had agreed with National Liberal leader Crin Antonescu that they would both support whatever prime minister would be nominated for the position after Boc had been brought down.

The daily paper Evenimentul Zilei, which is affiliated with the ruling coalition, shouts that “The Social Democrats and the National Liberals threw on the table a nameless prime minister”, claiming that it is precisely the disagreement on who is to become prime minister that prevents the two parties from cooperating.

Analysts are also rather skeptical about the opposition’s ability to truly rally members of parliament to first bring down the prime minister, then impeach president Traian Basescu, who is seen as the true leader of the government, and as the man behind its unpopular policies.

(Radio România Internaţional, Serviciul în limba engleză).