Romanian Far-Right Parties Start Long-Shot Bid to Oust President
(Bloomberg) -- Romania’s far-right parties launched a bid to suspend President Klaus Iohannis, whom they deem illegitimate after his term expired, ramping up pressure on the ruling coalition ahead of a rerun of presidential elections in May.
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The request filed to parliament and signed by the three far-right parties is the first step required to trigger an ouster, said Anamaria Gavrila, the leader of the Young People’s Party that initiated the procedure.
The bid would need the backing of some lawmakers from the ruling coalition to pass as the far-right parties only control a third of the seats in parliament.
While the support is unlikely to materialize, the move is part of the populist attempt to capitalize on growing public discontent over last month’s court decision to annul the presidential election due to alleged foreign interference.
The cancelation of the vote, whose first round was won by little known pro-Russian candidate Calin Georgescu, led to Romania’s biggest political crisis in decades. A repeat of the election is scheduled in May with Iohannis set to stay in office until the new president is elected. His term expired on Dec. 21.
“The constitution states that the president has a five-year term, that’s the rule, and it has to be respected and not extended through the backdoor,” Gavrila, who supports Georgescu, said in a social media post on Thursday.
The parliament in Bucharest will discuss and schedule the debate of the far-right parties’ motion in the coming weeks, Deputy Speaker Daniel Suciu told Bloomberg News on Thursday. An extraordinary meeting could be convened next week at the earliest, or when regular sessions resume from Feb. 1.
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