Today, the Parliament of Romania elected a pro-European center-right government headed by economist Florin Kicu from the National Liberal Party (PNL).
PNL of former Prime Minister Ludovic Orban will be the main party of the Government, while the Social Democratic Party (PSD), which won the most votes in the elections on December 6, will remain in opposition.
260 out of 465 MPs voted for the election of the Government, and 186 voted against.
Along with the PNL, the new ruling majority consists of the alliance of reform parties USR-PLUS and the party of the Hungarian minority UDMR.
Kicu (48), a former banker and finance minister, becomes prime minister at a time when Romania is facing a tough fight against the coronavirus pandemic and its economic consequences.
"I assure you that I will not betray your trust. We will do everything we can to achieve two goals, to overcome the health crisis as soon as possible and to get the economy back on its feet," Kicu told the deputies.
Before entering politics in 2016, Kicu worked for the Central Bank of New Zealand and the European Investment Bank. He studied in the USA.
In the elections on December 6, PSD won about 30 percent of the votes, PNL about 25 percent, and the USR-PLUS coalition about 15 percent of the votes.
The PSD, which ruled Romania from the fall of communism in 1989 until 2019, faced numerous criticisms from both the country and the EU in previous years, as well as mass protests by citizens due to its efforts to control the judicial system and a series of corruption scandals whose actors were its prominent members.
Even before the coronavirus pandemic, Romania was severely affected by poverty, as more than 25 percent of its 19 million inhabitants live on less than $5,5 a day. The pandemic further exacerbated structural problems and brought the overstretched healthcare system to the brink of collapse.
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