October 15 (SeeNews) - Romania's president Klaus Iohannis said on Tuesday he has appointed opposition National Liberal Party (PNL) leader Ludovic Orban as prime minister-designate tasked with forming a transitional government.
"I have decided to designate the next prime minister of Romania, namely Mr Ludovic Orban, the PNL chairman, the leader of the largest opposition party, the main promoter of the censure motion," Iohannis said in a televised statement.
According to the law, Orban must draw up the list of cabinet members and the government programme within 10 days after designation and then send it to parliament for debate.
If the parliament refuses to endorse Orban or a possible second nominee for prime minister, the president can dissolve parliament and call early elections.
Romania is scheduled to hold its next general election in late 2020 or early 2021.
On October 10, Viorica Dancila's Social-Democrat government lost a no-confidence vote requested by PNL. The censure motion called for the ousting of the Dancila government because of its incompetence which has made the country miss a lot of chances.
Former ruling Social Democrat Party (PSD) holds 206 of 465 seats in parliament. PNL has 94 MPs, Union Save Romania (USR) holds 40, Popular Movement Party (PMP) has 12 MPs, Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) holds 30 seats and Pro Romania has 39 seats. The remaining seats are filled by 17 MPs representing minorities, and by 27 independent MPs.
On August 26, the government coalition comprising PSD and ALDE collapsed as ALDE leader Calin Popescu-Tariceanu announced that his party is leaving the coalition. Tariceanu said that he and ALDE have been waiting for Dancila to come up with "an articulated plan for relaunching the government", but as she failed to do so, they decided to leave the alliance.
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