“They're playing.” Ciprian Ciucu says that “between five and ten votes” are missing for the PSD-AUR motion to be rejected / What the parliamentary arithmetic says
The general mayor of the Capital and the first vice-president of the PNL, Ciprian Ciucu, said on Sunday, on Antena 3 CNN, that the fate of the Government in the censure motion submitted by PSD and AUR “is being played out” and that “between five and ten votes” are missing for it to be rejected.
“Right now, they are playing. I think there are about 5-10 votes missing for it not to pass. I can't tell you for sure because I, personally, have not participated in any discussion. There is also the possibility that we will see desertions in other parts, that is, on both sides,” said Ciucu.
The first vice-president of the PNL claimed that the liberals are trying to convince MPs not to vote on the motion through “dignity”, not through promises of positions or benefits.
“It's not about betraying here, it's a vote of conscience, we don't give them money or positions or functions,” said the mayor of the Capital.
Ciucu stated that PSD and AUR should come up with an alternative government if the motion passes and reiterated that the liberals will no longer accept a new alliance with PSD.
“Whoever makes a majority to bring down a government, logically must come up with the alternative. So the PSD-AUR majority must come up with a Government. I said, if you bring down this Government, it is impossible to form a coalition with you. They will have to make the majority because they detonated this bomb,” he said.
The liberal leader claimed that the PNL has two options in the event of a government crisis: maintaining the current minority Executive or moving into the opposition.
“We have two options: the one in which the government does not fall and remains in the minority until the fall when a new motion can be submitted, or we go into opposition, there are no other options. The PSD is going down and wants to drag us all after it. The PNL has regained its dignity and we refuse to be a mockery of the PSD. If my party accepted any alliance with the PSD, it would become embarrassing”, Ciprian Ciucu also declared.
What does parliamentary arithmetic say?
At the moment, PSD and AUR together have 217 votes. PSD has 127 senators and deputies, and AUR has 90. The two parties still need 16 votes to pass the censure motion. The other opposition parties (SOS Romania, POT and PACE) gather 41 votes, if all the parliamentarians who are part of these groups vote for the motion, it would lead to a total of 258 parliamentarians.
Unaffiliated parliamentarians who left POT and SOS Romania collect 22 votes. Victoria Stoiciu is also unaffiliated after resigning from the PSD, but she does not support the censure motion.
PNL, USR and UDMR, the parties that announced that they continue to support Ilie Bolojan, have only 164 MPs in Parliament out of the 233 required for a majority. The 17 deputies of the National Minorities are added to them. That would lead to a total of 181 votes, still insufficient to support Bolojan in Parliament.
How many parliamentarians, deputies and senators does each party have:
PSD – 127;
GOLD – 90;
PNL – 74;
USR – 59;
UDMR – 32;
Minorities – 17 deputies;
SOS Romania – 15 deputies;
POT – 14 deputies;
PACE First Romania – 12 senators;
Unaffiliated – 23.
