ALDE's Tariceanu: PM Orban is playing early polls card

Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) Chairman Calin Popescu-Tariceanu said on Tuesday evening that Prime Minister Ludovic Orban is playing an early polls card. 

"Prime Minister Orban is playing an early polls card, he wants to trigger early elections. He has two solutions: resign, only resigning involved a series of risks, plus him going out of the circuit. The Constitution provides a very clear thing: the prime minister who is going to be designated after the resignation of the incumbent prime minister is one of the members of the government. It won't be Orban. Therefore, he goes on the reserve bench, which wouldn't benefit Orban. Therefore the preferred to go on the path of responsibility assumption. If there is a censure motion and the motion passes, therefore the government falls, he stays interim PM until the designation of another prime minister and his being voted in Parliament," Tariceanu told Realitatea Plus private broadcaster. 

He pointed out that ALDE endorses the election of mayors in two rounds and that he would have seen fairer the solution of an emergency ordinance to this end. 

"The solution with the emergency ordinance seemed fairer. Let me explain why. This assumption of responsibility introduces a very serious problem in Romanian politics, not only the idea of responsibility assumption, but the fact that they are done in a row. It short-circuits Parliament. They take out Parliament of the natural circuit of democratic debate, and this is very serious. (...) The emergency ordinance is debated in Parliament, after adoption it is sent to Parliament and MPs debate and can modify it, therefore, democratically," Calin Popescu-Tariceanu said.