Outgoing president of Romania, Kluas Lohannis is expected to designate leftist Social Democrat Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu to form a new government on Monday following three pro-European parties agreed to the details of a parliamentary majority.
The Social Democrat Party (PSD) will hold eight cabinet posts including justice, transport, labour and defence, and most of its current ministers will stay on in their posts.
The centrist Liberal Party (PNL) will have six cabinet jobs, including energy and interior and foreign ministries. The ethnic Hungarian party UDMR will have two posts, including finance.
Together with representatives of local ethnic minorities, the three parties will have a slim majority in the legislative in which three ultranationalist and hard-right parties won over a third of seats in a Dec. 1 parliamentary election.
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The new government must approve a new two-round presidential election calendar. In order to prevent a radical right representative from winning, the coalition’s three parties have agreed to support a single presidential candidate.
The original three rounds of voting to elect a new president and parliament in the European Union and NATO state with the longest land border with Ukraine devolved into chaos on November 24 when a little-known far-right pro-Russian politician won the first presidential round.
His surprising victory caused Romania’s top court to overturn the election on suspicion of Russian intervention and order a rerun, most likely in early 2025.
Romania’s new cabinet will also face the tough job of reducing the country’s budget deficit from a projected 8.6% of GDP this year, the EU’s highest, to approximately 7% in 2025, with ratings agencies and analysts expecting tax increases.
