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MP Simonis: Local and parliamentary election merger, unconstitutional
The interim Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Social Democrat MP Alfred Simonis, said Tuesday in Timisoara that a merger of local and parliamentary elections is unconstitutional and can only be applied in a state of emergency, told Agerpres.
Simonis stressed that Romania has other priorities at this time.
"It is complicated to understand what a simplification of the electoral year means. The most simplified situation would be not to have elections, it would also be more economical, but it is crazy. In a democracy, elections must be held, so I do not understand what a simplification means, if we refer to the same few and fixed ideas that some [National Liberal Party] PNL leaders invoke. We say it [the Social Democratic Party-PSD] and we will repeat it as many times as necessary: merging local and parliamentary elections is unconstitutional," Alfred Simonis told the press.
The PSD MP stressed that if there is not a similar context to 2020, a state of emergency, there is no reason to unnecessarily extend the mandates of local elected officials.
"Mergers and electoral changes to the advantage of a single party [PNL, editor's note] happen in banana countries, not democratic ones, as I like to think it is in Romania. In June 2024 we will have the elections for the European Parliament and the European Commission does not allow the elections for the EP to be combined with any other type of elections, because it is better for each election to be held separately (...). I have seen that the PNL wants to combine the local elections with the parliamentary elections, but this is not constitutionally possible. In this period, Romania has completely different priorities, because we are talking about European funds, the PNRR [National Recovery and Resilience Plan], the pension law and many other objectives for which Romania must pull this summer and autumn to attract tens of billions of euros, European money," said Simonis.
