Opposition union collects signatures to impeach President Traian Basescu

Romania’s opposition Social Liberal Union coalition leaders Crin Antonescu and Victor Ponta announced yesterday (January 9) that the coalition is still collecting signatures from the public in support of the petition to impeach the Romanian President Traian Basescu. PNL leader Crin Antonescu stated yesterday morning that the Social Liberal Union (USL) was to announce, on the same day, the ‘complete’ timetable of the impeachment. “From our point of view, the President’s impeachment will be made in parallel with petition. But as you know it can’t go through Parliament at this moment. It will go through when we have the majority,” said PSD President Victor Ponta after the Union’s meeting. The Romanian Prime Minister Emil Boc says that the Opposition’s initiative to collect signatures for President Basescu’s impeachment has “zero chance of success”. In early December USL’s Victor Ponta announced that the opposition wanted to collect 5.2 million signatures to support the impeachment of the President Traian Basescu, which is the number of votes Traian Basescu had in 2009 when he won the second round of elections. President Traian Basescu was suspended in 2007, for a month, but was reinstated after a referendum. Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com (photo source: Romanian Parliament)