LIVE Judgment Day for the Bolojan Government in Parliament. The last scenarios and calculations before the vote on the PSD-AUR censure motion this morning

The plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, where the fate of the Cabinet headed by Ilie Bolojan will be decided, meets at 11.00. While the social democrats are convinced that the no-confidence motion will pass, even with a large score, the liberals say they are “still” playing.

Since the PSD-AUR motion was announced, entitled “Stop the Bolojan plan” and signed by 254 parliamentarians, all parties are doing calculations. Together, PSD and AUR have 219 votes. In order to dismiss the Government, the vote of 233 of the total of 464 parliamentarians is needed.

How many MPs does each party have?

• PSD – 129 deputies and senators
• GOLD – 90 deputies and senators
• PNL – 75 deputies and senators
• USR – 59 deputies and senators
• UDMR – 31 deputies and senators
• Unaffiliated – 20 deputies and senators
• POT – 16 deputies
• SOS Romania – 15 deputies
• National Minorities – 17 deputies
• PACE – First Romania – 12 senators

PSD leaders are convinced that the motion will pass without problems. “It will pass with more votes than the number of signatures”, says number 2 of the PSD, Claudiu Manda.

On the other hand, some PNL leaders say that only a few MPs need to “return” for the motion to pass. “Right now, they are playing. I think there are about 5-10 votes missing for it not to pass,” says Ciprian Ciucu, PNL first vice-president.

Still, other liberals remain reserved. The leader of the PNL senators, Daniel Fenechiu, said on Monday that “there are senators and deputies who say they don't vote, others who say they vote. You can't believe them. We'll see at the vote.”

In the USR, the general opinion is that, most likely, the no-confidence motion will pass and the Bolojan Government will fall. Dominic Fritz declared, however, on Monday, at the end of a meeting with the party's parliamentarians, that it is possible that in Tuesday's vote “we will see a surprise”.

Minority votes can change the game

Although last week the National Minorities group in the Chamber of Deputies intended not to vote on the motion, no formal decision was made this week. Thus, the deputies representing the minorities will vote as they see fit. If all 17 voted for the motion, it would ensure the necessary number of votes to dismiss the Government from the start, even if no other parliamentarian, apart from PSD and AUR, would vote.

However, according to HotNews information, the social democrats rely on less than half of the minority votes.

However, there are still some parliamentarians who have not decided how they will vote. It is about another faction of the POT parliamentarians – seven, to be exact, led by deputy Răzvan Chiriță. They announced that they will decide on Tuesday morning whether or not to vote for the dismissal of the Bolojan Government, after consulting again with the representatives in the territory.

The 15 deputies of SOS Romania, led by Diana Șoșoacă, announced that they will decide on Tuesday morning whether to vote for the motion or not.

On Monday, several parliamentarians from the SOS Romania party went live on Facebook on Diana Iovanovici Șoșoacă's account, conducting a survey in which they asked followers how to vote for the PSD-AUR motion. In the first hour of the live, 85% of the followers said that the SOS parliamentarians should vote for the motion.

“I think it's time for the people to choose their own fate and take it upon themselves, to be responsible as well. That's why we have polls open both within the party. Voting will take place until 00.00”, Sosoacă told Gândul.

6 ex-POT parliamentarians announced that they would not vote for the motion

Six parliamentarians who are part of the UNIT party, but who were elected on the POT lists and are now unaffiliated, have announced that they will not vote for the censure motion against the Bolojan Government, even though five of them signed the motion.

Senator Liviu Fodoca is added to the five signatories. He was also elected on the POT lists, but after he left the parliamentary group he joined the PACE – First Romania group. Fodoca announced that he will not vote on the motion because “I am not and will never be the political tool of the PSD”.

Also, a parliamentarian who ran on behalf of SOS Romania, but joined the PSD parliamentary group, Alexandrin Moiseev, announced that he would not vote for the motion: “I have no way of voting for the censure motion against the most competent prime minister that Romania has had since the Revolution until now.” On Monday, he left the PSD group and switched to the PNL, but was replaced by the unaffiliated deputy Rodica Plopeanu, who criticized the prime minister several times.

Moiseev is the third PSD parliamentarian to leave the party after the party led by Sorin Grindeanu withdrew its support from Prime Minister Bolojan and then submitted the censure motion alongside AUR. The first to leave PSD was deputy Emanoil Neagu, who joined PNL, followed by senator Victoria Stoiciu, who remained unaffiliated.

None of the three MPs who left PSD these days signed the censure motion.

“The PACE – First Romania group is acting decisively. In the Senate, the 9 signatories of the motion, out of 12 members, will vote “for” unequivocally”, Senator Ninel Peia told news.ro.

So, if 9 votes from the PACE group and only 5 votes from the National Minorities group were “definitely” added to the 219 votes of PSD and AUR, the censure motion would pass with the minimum required number of votes, and the Bolojan Government would fall.

On the other hand, PNL, UDMR and USR together have 165 parliamentarians, to which are added the 6 former POT parliamentarians who signed the motion, but announced they would not vote for it.

Voting procedure

Parliamentarians receive two balls: one white and one black, which must be placed in the two ballot boxes (also one white and one black). They express their option by inserting the balls into the ballot box, according to the Regulations of the Chamber of Deputies:

The white ball inserted into the white urn and the black ball inserted into the black urn means a “for” vote, and the white ball inserted into the black urn and the black ball inserted into the white urn means a “against” vote.

Both balls inserted in the black urn mean “abstain”.

After the list of 465 parliamentarians is called, the votes are counted and the result of the censure motion is announced.

Voting strategies – walkouts, absentee voting and “present, not voting”

On Monday, several meetings of parliamentary groups took place, and each party decided what its strategy would be for today's vote. UDMR decided that its MPs will be present in the hall, but that they will not vote. USR made the same decision.

For their part, the liberals established, following the meetings attended by Prime Minister Bolojan, that the PNL MPs will participate in the meeting, in the debate of the motion, but that they will leave the room at the time of the vote, “in protest against this monstrous coalition (PSD-AUR -nr)”. Only the leaders of the groups from the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, along with 5 vice-leaders, will remain in the plenary hall to ensure that there is no vote fraud.

At the PSD, Monday's leadership meeting with the party's parliamentarians was more of a mobilization. Leaders from the territory were also present, such as Alfred Simonis, president of the Timiș County Council and Gheorghe Șoldan, president of the Suceava County Council. The decision of the social democrats was to vote “on sight”. This means that the MPs will show which ball, white or black, they will insert into each of the ballot boxes.

What happens if the Bolojan Government falls

In the scenario where the censure motion gathers a sufficient number of votes, the Bolojan Government will fall, but will remain interim until President Nicușor Dan appoints a new prime minister to form the Government. From that moment, negotiations for a new majority begin. According to HotNews sources, both President Nicușor Dan and Sorin Grindeanu want to keep the coalition formed by PSD, PNL, USR, UDMR and the National Minorities.

On Monday, Claudiu Manda, the general secretary of the PSD and basically Sorin Grindeanu's right-hand man, claimed that the social democrats rule out a government with the AUR.

PNL and USR have already adopted two internal resolutions by which they clearly convey that if PSD overthrows the Government, there will be no way of reconciliation and they will no longer be part of coalitions with the party led by Grindeanu.

At least at the leadership level, both the Liberals and the USR convey that they do not rule out entering the opposition.

Ilie Bolojan conveyed in Monday's meeting of the group of liberal deputies that “the opposition has always done the PNL well”, said Gabriel Andronache, while Dominic Fritz explained that the USR does not shy away from a minority government and that it is not afraid of anticipation or the opposition.

After the vote on the motion, meetings will be held at each of the parties. The one from the PNL is scheduled for Tuesday, for 17:00, and the agenda will be established after the plenary vote, while PSD and USR have not finalized all the details.

The meetings come in preparation for the next stage – the Cotroceni consultations. With the fall of the Government, President Nicușor Dan will call the parties to consultations, to find a majority and to find out what each party wants. The president will then appoint a new prime minister.

Since the Bolojan Government was installed in June 2025, Nicușor Dan has been constantly talking with the coalition leaders, in formal, publicly announced discussions, but also in informal discussions.

“We will have a motion tomorrow. I want to assure the Romanians that, no matter what happens, in one sense or the other, Romania will continue to keep the western trajectory, the state will continue to function and there is agreement on the immediate fundamental objectives, which are SAFE and PNRR”, President Nicusor Dan said on Monday.

Answering a question, he said that all the government options he has “in his head”, whether they are majority or minority, “are based on a majority support of pro-Western parties”.

Six governments overthrown by motion of no confidence

Six governments were dismissed by no-confidence motion in post-December Romania.

The first was the Boc Government, which was dismissed on October 13, 2009 through a motion submitted by PNL and UDMR, with the support of PSD. Then, 254 MPs voted for the motion and 176 against.

In 2012, the Government led by Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu followed, which after only 78 days was dismissed with 235 votes for and only 9 against.

The third prime minister dismissed by motion of no confidence was Sorin Grindeanu, against whom his own party voted, in 2017. PSD and ALDE parliamentarians initiated the motion which was voted by 241 parliamentarians. Only 10 voted against the motion.

Viorica Dăncilă followed, dismissed in 2019 with the votes of 238 senators and deputies from PNL, USR, PMP, Pro Romania, ALDE, UDMR and National Minorities.

In 2020, the Orban Government fell, with 261 votes for the motion initiated by PSD and UDMR.

A year later, Florin Cîțu became the dismissed prime minister with the most votes – 281 votes for the motion and 0 against it.