Romania’s Social Democrat-led government survived a no-confidence motion on Wednesday – but faced more turbulence outside parliament, where thousands of anti-corruption protesters gathered to demand Prime Minister Viorica Dancila’s resignation.

Tensions rose also in the legislature over new security regulations that banned opposition MPs from inviting their supporters and advisors into the building – while journalists’ access was restricted for the first time since the 1989 revolution to a limited press area.

The motion submitted by the opposition Liberals, and backed by the Save Romania Union and the nationalist Popular Movement Party, came 67 votes short of the 233 votes needed to bring down the government.

“You’re mystifying reality,” Dancila told the debate. “To you, a rise in income is a populist measure… there are many lies in this motion,” she added.

Her speech was interrupted several times by opposition MPs who chanted “Resignation! Resignation!” and put up a banner reading, “We fight until the end for Romania.”

The Liberals failed to win the support of the main ethnic Hungarian party in parliament, the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania, which holds 21 seats.

It did win the support of MPs gathered around former Social Democrat leader Victor Ponta, who left the ruling party to form his own political faction, but their votes were not enough.

Social Democrat MPs did not vote, as the party wanted to avoid the risk of any of its MPs supporting the no-confidence motion.

Over 70 Social Democrat supporters were allowed into the balconies of the chamber, as the law allows citizens to observe debates.

 Opposition MPs protesting during Prime Minister Viorica Dancila’s speech. Photo: Octav Ganea/Inquam Photos

But their presence angered opposition MPs, after the ruling coalition banned MPs from Save Romania Union – the third force in parliament – from bringing their own guests into the complex, including their advisors.

Among those who were denied access to the chamber was Save Romania Union’s communications advisor, Ioana Lupea.

Social Democrat leader Liviu Dragnea “is not allowing me to go inside the parliament. He gave the order that no USR guest can enter the building. The Social Democrats’ guests are allowed in, I just saw a group of women happily entering the building. So today I will work from the hallway. I have this before ’89 feeling. Really bad,” she wrote on Facebook.

The new regulations were adopted on Tuesday by the leadership of the two chambers, after Save Romania Union MPs allowed a group of anti-corruption protesters to enter parliament on June 20 and stage a sit-in against the ruling party’s plan to relax anti-graft legislation.

Journalists’ movement and access were also restricted to a press area, several reporters told BIRN. The move is unprecedented as journalists were formerly free to move around and interview MPs.

News website G4media.ro said a leading Social Democrat MP, Eugen Nicolicea, had told reporters that their access was restricted because their presence bothered the meetings.

“You have all the facilities you need on the ground floor. There is a press room, you have what you need there. But you’re sitting here, lying around like in a bus station,” he told the media.

Nicolicea also submitted a proposal on Wednesday to punish MPs who are deemed undisciplined with 20 to 30 day suspensions. The move was a response to the fact that Save Romania Union MPs have often staged protests during debates.

Meanwhile, about 5,000 protesters, many of them Save Romania Union supporters, rallied in Izvor Park, right next to parliament, to demand Dancila’s resignation.

Protesters organized on social media, and several companies announced they gave their employees the day off to join the protests. </s> BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romania’s left-leaning Social Democrats easily won parliamentary elections a year after a major anti-corruption drive forced the last Socialist prime minister from power, near-final results released Monday showed.

Election authorities said that with 99 percent of the votes from Sunday’s balloting counted, the Social Democratic Party had won about 46 percent and the center-right Liberals were second with over 20 percent.

The chairman of the Social Democrats, Liviu Dragnea, spoke Sunday after exit polls showed similar results. “There should be no doubt who won the elections,” he said. “Romanians want to feel at home in their own country and I want Romania to be a good home for all Romanians.”

Dragnea got a two-year suspended prison sentence in April for voter fraud for inflating voter numbers in a July 2012 referendum to impeach then-President Traian Basescu.

Under a 2001 law, Dragnea is not allowed to be appointed prime minister because of the conviction, and last week he said the party would not try to change the law. However, he told Romania TV Monday that he had not ruled himself out as a future premier.

President Klaus Iohannis has said he will not nominate a premier who has been convicted or who is a subject of a corruption investigation.

Dragnea’s party has pushed a populist agenda, but on Sunday he sought to strike a conciliatory note, saying he wanted to end bitter divisions in the country.

The Save Romania Union, a new party that ran on an anti-corruption ticket, finished third, allowing it to enter Parliament. A party needs 5 percent of the votes to enter the bicameral legislature. Votes from parties that do not make the threshold are redistributed.

Turnout for the election was low, at just 39.5 percent, more than two percentage points less than the 2012 parliamentary elections.

Former Prime Minister Victor Ponta, already the subject of a corruption probe, resigned after mass protests following a nightclub fire in October 2015 that killed 64 people. Romania is currently run by a government of technocrats headed by Premier Dacian Ciolos, a former European Union agriculture commissioner.

The country of about 19 million people is one of the poorest in the 28-member European Union and perceived as one of the most corrupt. </s> BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) - Romania's ruling party has lost key support from a party that it was counting on to support a vote of no-confidence - against the ruling party's own government.

That makes it harder for the ruling Social Democratic Party to oust Premier Sorin Grindeanu in the vote on Wednesday.

Talks broke down between the Union of Democratic Hungarians in Romania and the Social Democrats on Tuesday after they failed to agree on extra benefits for ethnic Hungarians.

Romanian Government General Secretary and former Prime Minister, Victor Ponta,gestures during an interview with the Associated Press in Bucharest, Romania, Monday, June 19, 2017. Ponta has called on lawmakers not to oust the prime minister in a no-confidence vote this week called by members of his own party. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

The Social Democrats withdrew support from Grindeanu last week. He refused to resign.

The Social Democrats and junior partner the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats have 247 seats in the 465-legislature. To oust Grindeanu, they need 233 votes.

However, the premier still has some friends who may be ill, absent or otherwise engaged Wednesday.

Romanian Government General Secretary and former Prime Minister, Victor Ponta, adjusts his glasses during an interview with the Associated Press in Bucharest, Romania, Monday, June 19, 2017. Ponta's has called on lawmakers not to oust the prime minister in a no-confidence vote this week called by members of his own party. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda) </s> BUCHAREST - Romania's Social Democrats stepped back from a potential constitutional crisis Wednesday by making a second proposal for prime minister after their first choice was rejected by the president. "We have decided not to plunge the country into a new political crisis... As a result we have decided to make a new proposal," PSD chief Liviu Dragnea said after a meeting of his left-wing party.

The new candidate is Sorin Grindeanu, a 43-year-old former communications minister. The PSD's first choice was Sevil Shhaideh, who would have been Romania's first female and first Muslim premier. President Klaus Iohannis rejected Shhaideh, who is from Romania's small and well-established Turkish minority, on Tuesday. Iohannis gave no reason for his decision but there was speculation that Shhaideh's Syrian husband's background was the decisive factor. Dragnea, who cannot stand as premier himself because of a conviction, threatened on Tuesday to initiate proceedings to suspend Iohannis.

But on Wednesday Dragnea walked back on the threat, saying such action would be "irresponsible".

The PSD won a thumping election victory on December 11, barely a year after a deadly nightclub fire forced it from office. Together with the ALDE party it has a majority in parliament. </s> BUCHAREST, Romania — Romanian voters appeared to return the center-left Social Democratic Party to power in parliamentary elections on Sunday, a year after large protests in Bucharest over a deadly nightclub fire led to the resignation of the party’s previous government.

With more than 90 percent of the vote counted, the Social Democratic Party led with just over 46 percent. Its main rival, the National Liberal Party, trailed by more than 25 percentage points.

If that lead bears out, the Social Democratic Party will be in a position to lead the country in a coalition with the smaller Alliance of Liberals and Democrats party, which appeared to have just over 5 percent of the vote.

“Today, citizens voted for economic growth, for jobs, for more money into the pockets of Romanians,” Liviu Dragnea, the Social Democratic Party leader, said in a statement after exit polls pointed to a victory for the party. </s> BUCHAREST, Romania >> Romania’s most powerful politician was sentenced today to 3½ years in prison for official misconduct in a graft case.

The jail time for Liviu Dragnea, party leader of the ruling Social Democrats, came after a conviction last year for having two party members paid by a public agency for fake jobs.

According to prosecutors, Dragnea intervened from 2008 to 2010, when he was a government official, to keep two women employed by his party on the payroll of the family welfare agency. The women admitted working for the party while they received salaries from the public agency.

Dragnea, already blocked from being Romania’s prime minister because of a 2016 conviction for vote-rigging, was expected to be imprisoned shortly 24 hours.

Hundreds of Romanians took to the streets of Bucharest, the capital, today to celebrate Dragnea’s sentence, some of them posing for pictures with cutouts of Dragnea in prison garb. The ruling party has been widely criticized for failing to fight corruption by officials.

Prime Minister Viorica Dancila refused to comment on the court decision, but acknowledged its impact.

“Regardless of what one feels about Dragnea, his conviction is a difficult moment” for the Social Democratic Party, Dancila said. “It’s a drama for him and his family. We stand by him.”

Victor Ponta, a former prime minister with the Social Democrats and now chairman of Pro Romania Party, was more critical.

“I’m sorry that this man, blinded by pride and viciousness, pulled Romania, the government, parliament, an entire party and the honor of millions of people into a hole with him,” Ponta said in a Facebook post

Dan Barna, chairman of the opposition Save Romania Union party, welcomed the court ruling, which had been delayed for months after Dragnea appealed the June 2018 conviction.

“Today’s ruling ends the Dragnea era, one of the darkest over the last 30 years,” Barna said in a Facebook post. “Romania is getting healthier, we are coming back to Europe.”

Dragnea’s party suffered huge losses in European Parliament election on Sunday, falling to second place behind the opposition National Liberal Party.

Additionally, a non-binding referendum called by President Klaus Iohannis, a government opponent, seeking to pressure the government into stopping efforts to water down anti-corruption measures won support from 80% of voters on Sunday. </s> The head of the Social Democrat Party, Liviu Dragnea, speaks to media after exit polls were announced in the parliamentary elections in Bucharest, Romania, Sunday, Dec. 11, 2016. Two exit polls give Romania's left-leaning Social Democrats a huge lead in a parliamentary election placing them first with about 45 percent while the center-right Liberals came second with about 21 percent of the vote, although these are provisional estimates. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romania's left-leaning Social Democrats easily won parliamentary elections a year after a major anti-corruption drive forced the last Socialist prime minister from power, near-final results released Monday showed.

Election authorities said that with 99 percent of the votes from Sunday's balloting counted, the Social Democratic Party had won about 46 percent and the center-right Liberals were second with over 20 percent.

The chairman of the Social Democrats, Liviu Dragnea, spoke Sunday after exit polls showed similar results. "There should be no doubt who won the elections," he said. "Romanians want to feel at home in their own country and I want Romania to be a good home for all Romanians."

Dragnea got a two-year suspended prison sentence in April for voter fraud for inflating voter numbers in a July 2012 referendum to impeach then-President Traian Basescu.

Under a 2001 law, Dragnea is not allowed to be appointed prime minister because of the conviction, and last week he said the party would not try to change the law. However, he told Romania TV Monday that he had not ruled himself out as a future premier.

President Klaus Iohannis has said he will not nominate a premier who has been convicted or who is a subject of a corruption investigation.

Dragnea's party has pushed a populist agenda, but on Sunday he sought to strike a conciliatory note, saying he wanted to end bitter divisions in the country.

The Save Romania Union, a new party that ran on an anti-corruption ticket, finished third, allowing it to enter Parliament. A party needs 5 percent of the votes to enter the bicameral legislature. Votes from parties that do not make the threshold are redistributed.

Turnout for the election was low, at just 39.5 percent, more than two percentage points less than the 2012 parliamentary elections.

Former Prime Minister Victor Ponta, already the subject of a corruption probe, resigned after mass protests following a nightclub fire in October 2015 that killed 64 people. Romania is currently run by a government of technocrats headed by Premier Dacian Ciolos, a former European Union agriculture commissioner.

The country of about 19 million people is one of the poorest in the 28-member European Union and perceived as one of the most corrupt. </s> BUCHAREST, Romania — Romania’s left-wing government easily survived a no-confidence vote Wednesday that was submitted by the opposition in Parliament, which claimed it has weakened democracy and the rule of law.

The motion initiated by the Liberal Party secured 166 votes, far short of the 233 it needed to dismiss the government of Prime Minister Viorica Dancila. She was appointed in January, becoming the third premier since the ruling Social Democratic Party came to power through the December 2016 parliamentary election.

The powerful leader of the Social Democrats, Liviu Dragnea, received a 3 1/2 year sentence last week for abuse of power in office. His party has rallied around him, pending a final verdict. Dragnea can’t be prime minister due to a 2016 vote-rigging conviction.

Thousands of Romanians gathered in a park near Parliament ahead of Wednesday’s vote, yelling “Resign!” and waving Romanian flags while riot police stood guard. Some companies gave employees the day off to protest.

Dancila defended the government’s performance, saying it had raised salaries and pensions while insisting that opposition lawmakers created “a list of falsehoods made in bad faith.”

Opposition lawmakers booed the prime minister as she spoke and unfurled a giant banner reading, “We will fight to the end for Romania.” Social Democratic lawmakers did not vote.

Romanians have staged daily protests as the governments moves to implement new laws that critics say will weaken the nation’s fight against corruption.

Dan Barna, leader of the opposition Union to Save Romania, said the Social Democrats were guilty of “changing laws to make sure Dragnea doesn’t go to prison.” </s> BUCHAREST, Romania — For the second time in less than seven months, Romania is without a prime minister, after the governing Social Democrat Party pulled its support for the incumbent, forcing his resignation.

The prime minister, Mihai Tudose, announced on Monday evening that he would step down after party leaders failed to resolve a dispute between him and the party’s powerful leader, Liviu Dragnea, who is unable to serve as prime minister himself because of a 2016 conviction for electoral fraud.

Tensions had flared in recent weeks after Mr. Tudose tried to remove a close ally of Mr. Dragnea’s from her role as interior minister, after accusing her of lying to him.

The Social Democrats won a strong mandate in Romania’s last parliamentary elections, held in December 2016. But since then the country has been rocked by the largest protests in a quarter of a century, when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets last February to oppose government measures that would have relaxed penalties for official corruption. The government backed down, but it has continued to push for similar measures, drawing protesters back into the streets, albeit in smaller numbers.

On Dec. 20, the Romanian Senate passed legislation that critics said would weaken the independence of the country’s judiciary. The legislation is awaiting the signature of Klaus Iohannis, the country’s president, who is seen as an ally of the protest movement. But he is likely to refuse to sign it and return it to Parliament for further debate.

Mr. Tudose did not put up much resistance after party leaders voted overwhelming to withdraw their support. “I leave with my head held high,” he told reporters. “The party decided that a different government is needed, with a different type of approach.”
Being forced into opposition a year earlier, by the resignation of Prime Minister Victor Ponta amid the Colectiv nightclub fire tragedy, the Social Democratic Party returns to government following a landslide victory in last Sunday's parliamentary elections.