Romania's Government likely to survive no-confidence vote on Dec 20

Romania’s Government will most likely survive the no-confidence vote scheduled in the Parliament for December 20 after the ethnic Hungarians’ party UDMR decided to abstain from voting. The parties signatory of the no-confidence motion said they needed 70 more votes, while UDMR has 30 MPs in both chambers of the Parliament -- meaning that it could not, anyway, secure the decisive support for the motion. Furthermore, two of the ruling coalition's MPs having left the senior ruling party last week returned, rising to 72 the number of supplementary votes needed by the opposition parties. UDMR will attend the Parliament’s session on December 20, will express its position about the government’s performance, but its members will not vote, party president Kelemen Hunor stated, according to local News.ro. While expressing criticism to the Government, the leaders of the ethnic Hungarians’ party questioned the strategy of the opposition parties as well. Hunor asked the National Liberal Party (PNL) and Save Romania Union (USR) to come up with a prime minister candidate and a strategy, before overthrowing the incumbent cabinet. Furthermore, Hunor reacted to the criticism expressed by the core opposition party against the ambiguous position of UDMR. editor@romania-insider.com (photo source: Shutterstock)