Nicolae Ciucă is the country’s new acting prime minister
Romania’s Defence Minister Nicolae Ciucă is the country’s new acting prime minister, according to a government statement late on Monday. The move comes after Ludovic Orban, leader of the center-right National Liberal Party (PNL), announced his resignation following surprisingly poor results in parliament elections on Sunday. “Romania needs a responsible government that represents the will of the citizens,” he said in a public statement on Monday evening. “With my decision today I want to show one thing very clearly: I will not cling to the position of prime minister”, he pointed out. Mr. Orban has been prime minister for more than a year after the government of the left-wing Social Democrat Party (PSD) had to quit following a no-confidence vote. Nicolae Ioan Ciucă is an army general and a former Army Chief of Staff who became Minister of Defence in November 2019.
Partial results in Romania’s parliamentary elections
The left-wing Social Democrat Party (PSD) won Romania’s parliamentary elections on Sunday as it got 30.13 percent of the vote for the Senate, and 29.59 percent of the vote for the lower house, according to latest data issued by the Central Electoral Bureau (BEC) on Tuesday after 96.43 percent of the ballots were counted. PSD is followed by the former governing National Liberal Party (PNL) with 25.58 percent of the vote for the Senate, and 25.18 for the lower house. The right-wing alliance of the Save Romania Union and the Party of Liberty, Unity and Solidarity, known as USR-PLUS, comes third with 15.24 percent of the votes for the Senate and 14.75 percent of the votes in the lower house. The fourth place went to the newly created Alliance for Unity of Romanians, known as AUR (8.77 percent of the vote, and 8.69 percent, respectively), followed by the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania (UDMR – RMDSZ) with 6.13 percent of the votes and 5.98 percent of the votes, respectively. The People’s Movement Party (PMP) of former President Traian Băsescu, and the Pro Romania Party of former PM Victor Ponta did not succeed in reaching the threshold of 5 percent allowing them to join the new parliament.
Romania’s latest COVID-19 figures
Romania reported 7,439 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours following 29,151 tests nationwide, according to data issued by the country’s Strategic Communication Group (GCS) on Tuesday. Some 1,276 people were under intensive care while the number of deaths hit 213 (119 men, 94 women). Romania’s capital Bucharest reported 1,946 new cases followed by the counties of Cluj (north-central Romania – 464 cases), Iassy (north-eastern Romania – 353 cases), Constantza (south-eastern Romania – 281 cases, Timiș (western Romania – 244 cases), Ilfov (southern Romania – 223 cases), and Brașov (central Romania – 208 cases).
Alexandru Danga, RADOR
