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| - Romania's president Klaus Iohannis hinted Monday that he would ask the governing liberal party to carry on in office under a new coalition, despite a surprise win for the opposition socialists in Sunday's parliamentary elections. "It's clear that centre-right parties got over 50 percent of the votes (...) This way, the PSD (socialists) will remain outside political decision-making", Iohannis said in a televised statement. Iohannis had campaigned for the governing liberal PNL party which came in second on 25.5 percent compared to 30 percent for the Social Democrats Party (PSD), according to results based on 95 percent of the votes counted. The PSD has dominated Romanian politics since the collapse of communism but its last spell in government was overshadowed by street protests and clashes with the European Union and Iohannis over judicial reforms. The surprise election result led to the resignation of Prime Minister Ludovic Orban, who also heads the National Liberal Party. The PNL had campaigned on a modernising, pro-European platform and had been ahead in pre-election opinion polls. However, it seems to have paid the price for its controversial handling of the coronavirus pandemic and attendant economic crisis. The PNL will still have the best chance of finding allies among the smaller parties to build a majority in parliament. It is expected to work with the centre-right USR Plus alliance, which won 15.5 percent, as well as the UDMR party representing the Hungarian minority, which won six percent. "A centre-right coalition which can propose a government is rapidly crystallising", Iohannis said in his statement, referring to the prospect of those parties working together. Romania is one of the EU's poorest countries, and four million of its citizens have left in recent years to seek better lives elsewhere, in particular in western EU member states. While overall turnout was at a record low for a parliamentary election, many more expatriate Romanians turned out than in the last such election in 2016, voting mostly for USR-Plus and the PNL. It will not all be plain sailing for a PNL-led government. "The majority which will no doubt be formed around the PNL will be extremely fragile," political scientist Adrian Taranu told AFP, adding that the "liberals will have trouble managing the alliance over the long-term". He cited as an example the fact that USR-Plus is more radical in its suggestions for anti-corruption measures than the PNL or UDMR. Taranu even raised the possibility that the PNL would have to co-operate with the Social Democrats on certain laws if tensions between the PNL and its allies boil over. The only other party to make it into parliament will be the nationalist AUR, close to the country's Orthodox Church. After leading an anti-EU campaign which also featured coronavirus-related conspiracy theories and opposition to mask-wearing and lockdowns, AUR finished with 8.8 percent but is likely to be shunned by other parties. According to Taranu, the PSD would be well within its rights to put forward a candidate for prime minister "even if they have no chance of forming a majority". "They will do it so that they can put Iohannis in an awkward position," says Taranu. Under the constitution Iohannis has to convene talks among political parties to see which of them is best able to command a majority among parliament's 465 MPs and senators. After three years where he clashed repeatedly with three successive PSD governments, Iohannis said he does not want the party to return to office during his current term, which ends in 2024. The PSD won the 2016 election in a landslide but its proposed reforms of the judicial system sparked the biggest protests the country had seen since the fall of communism in 1989. Further weakened by several scandals and the jailing of its ex-leader Liviu Dragnea on corruption charges, the PSD was removed from office in a no-confidence vote at end of 2019. mr/anb/jsk/lc
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