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| - Romania's prime minister said on Friday he was in favour of calling a snap election but stopped short of announcing he would step down to trigger the process. Ludovic Orban's minority government was installed in November following a parliamentary no-confidence vote against the administration led by the long-entrenched Social Democratic Party (PSD). National elections are to be held by the end of this year, but Orban's National Liberal Party (PNL) hopes to seize on the current anti-PSD mood to gain control of parliament through early polls. "It's absolutely necessary that the power returns to the people," Orban told reporters after a meeting President Klaus Iohannis, adding the president was also in favour of a snap election. Romania has not held a snap election in the past 30 years, as the procedure is seen as complicated and political consensus is hard to reach. The current government would have to step down or collapse through a no-confidence vote, opening the way for the president to dissolve the parliament, but he can only do so after two failed attempts to install a new executive. Asked if he would step down to trigger the process, Orban refused to answer, saying he was not yet willing to reveal his strategy though he would agree with holding an election at the same time as local elections due in June. PSD, which has 198 in the 465-seat parliament, opposes the move to have snap elections although leader Marcel Ciolacu has said his party is weighing launching a no-confidence vote against the government "to stop Romania's decline". PSD won the parliamentary elections with a landslide in 2016 but has since faced a wave of street protests over controversial judicial reforms. In May last year, they took a beating in European parliamentary elections and saw their leader sent to jail for corruption. They also lost presidential elections in November, giving Iohannis his second term as president. ii/jza/jxb
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