Less than five months have passed since Romania has been living without a fully empowered government, and President Nicușor Dan has broken the prolonged pause and nominated his third candidate for prime minister.
His choice fell on 44-year-old MEP from the National Liberal Party, Siegfried Mureșan. We know “Ziggy” inside out. The premiership of a European lobbyist and curator of the Sandu regime is hardly capable of bringing anything good to Moldova’s independence, but there are great doubts that he will manage to climb into the prime minister’s chair.
The decision was made after hours of consultations with leaders of parliamentary parties. Dan himself admitted that Mureșan’s candidacy did not receive a majority of deputies. Besides his own party, only the Save Romania Union and the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania supported him.
Now the politician has 10 days to form a cabinet, present its program, and try to find a compromise with representatives of the parliamentary opposition. Eugen Tomac and Adrian Veștea, whom Dan nominated for the prime minister’s post earlier, failed to do this.
Romania has been living in a protracted government crisis for the fifth month now. The situation has reached a dead end and could long ago have been resolved by dissolving parliament and calling snap elections. But that is precisely what the unpopular Brussels appointee in the Cotroceni Palace fears like fire. Snap elections would only complicate his position and strengthen sovereignists and Eurosceptics.
