Romania’s three nationalist opposition parties— the AUR (ECR) and two of its more extreme off-shoots, SOS Romania and POT—announced their intentions to initiate a parliamentary suspension (impeachment) procedure against President Klaus Iohannis. The move follows last year’s annulled presidential election, after which Iohannis decided to stay as interim head of state until the elections are repeated in May.
The constitution has no clear provisions for such an unprecedented situation, sparking debate over Iohannis’s legitimacy to remain in office. Iohannis unilaterally opted to stay, but despite gaining Constitutional Court approval, the opposition parties on both sides regard him as illegitimate.
The three Eurosceptic parties, as well as the fourth opposition bloc, the pro-EU anti-establishment USR (Renew) have been demanding the reversal of the Constitutional Court (CCR) decision that annulled the election last month. The annulment cited unproven allegations of Russian interference favoring nationalist candidate Călin Georgescu.
The opposition believes the court, packed by the ruling socialist party (PSD) and pressured from Brussels, violated basic democratic principles by canceling the second round and forcing a rerun six months later. Protests, supported by 62% of Romanians, drew tens of thousands demanding the second-round election.
Meanwhile—similar to what is happening in Slovakia—the nationalist parties are calling for an extraordinary parliamentary session to start Iohannis’s suspension process.
They would need one-third of the parliament, meaning 155 signatures, to initiate a debate on the suspension. AUR, SOS, and POT meet the threshold as they have 162 seats between them, but the next steps would be a lot trickier. First, they need the Constitutional Court to approve the vote, something they are very unlikely to receive. They then need to rally a majority of MPs to vote for Iohannis’ suspension.
Although establishment media portrays this effort as an extremist attempt to “destabilize” the country, the nationalists are not the only ones calling for the president to be deposed. USR leader Elena Lasconi recently called Iohannis the “illegal tenant” of the presidential palace. Lasconi argued that Iohannis was “directly responsible” for the political crisis by declassifying the intelligence reports about Russia’s alleged pro-Georgescu campaigns and pushing the court toward the annulment, and said every day the president remains in office only exacerbates the tensions in the country.
However, even with USR included, the four opposition parties have only 221 MPs, while the suspension procedure would need 233 votes to succeed. The question therefore is whether they could woo a dozen establishment MPs from among the three ruling parties, the social democrat PSD (S&D), the center-right PNL (EPP), and the ethnic Hungarian UDMR (EPP).
While it’s unlikely that enough of them would rebel, there are signs that at least some are considering it. According to media sources, two high-ranking officials of PNL—the party formerly led by Iohannis—pushed party leader Ilie Bolojan to publicly ask for the president’s resignation. Citing the need for political stability, however, Bolojan turned it down. He may also not want to spoil his possible candidacy for May by becoming interim president in the current situation, since as Senate president, the role would fall to him if Iohannis was suspended.
