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Romanian opposition moves to impeach President Basescu
Leaders of Romania’s opposition Social Liberal Union said Monday they are triggering procedures to impeach President Traian Basescu.
The leadership of the Social Liberal Union (USL, an opposition alliance of Social Democrats, Liberals and Conservatives - editor's note) on Monday decided to trigger the moves for suspending President Traian Basescu from the position, the National Liberal Party (PNL) President Crin Antonescu announced.
'This is neither a whim nor a made-up agenda', said Antonescu, who stressed the USL wants to hold a large-scale public debate on the issue.
According to the Liberal leader, a first step is to set up a political commission to draw up the request for the President's suspension. The document will be put forward to the USL members' joint parliamentary groups to debate it and, if assumed, it will enter the parliamentary route, he explained.
He said that USL would 'most likely' try to build 'a large public support' around this attempt to suspend President Traian Basescu during the aforementioned public debate, depending on the calendar scheduled.
'We strongly believe that, judging by everything that has happened since December 6 up to now, Romania has experienced a process of severe undermining of its state of law, of substituting the institutions of this state of law which are to be found in the Constitution, and that the will and political action were virtually unconstitutionally seized by a single person. Therefore, a single person gives orders to the Government, a person who immorally and illegally built fake parliamentary majorities and orders them around now, a person who, judging by his latest statement, fails to observe the independence of the Judiciary, not even for the sake of appearances,' added the Liberal leader.
The USL leaders had announced since the 16th Novemvembr their intention to take into discussion the starting up of suspension procedures of the head of state. “ We noticed with deep worry and indignation the fact that,through the new statements made on the public radio channel president Traian Basescu announced his refusal to involve the law which included the annual change of pensions, as well as the judicial decisions gained by the teachers and other state-owned employees ( decisions due to be applied by the law passed by himself). This refusal will persist even after a possible decision of the Constitutional Court as to the compulsory character of respecting the law”.
As regards Victor Ponta, USL joint chairman and Social Democratic Party (PSD) chairman, he said that PSD would meet in an executive committee on Tuesday to talk about the suspension and the measures to be taken so that the attempt should prove successful. 'We are going to hold talks during the united groups. This procedure should be carried on till the end, once we start it,' Ponta said.
In order to suspend the president, USL needs 234 votes in the Parliament ( as against 217 members) and for the destitution of the president there is a need of half plus one of the participants in the referendum organized for the demission. These are the steps to be followed:
The Parliament chambers get together in a joint session to decide on the decision to suspend the president from his position. For the debates the president of Romania is invited, whom will be given the floor, at this request, anytime during the debates, to explain th facts that are brought against him.
The decision will be adopted with the vote of the majority of the deputies and the senators, and the vote is secret, through balls. If the proposal of suspension is approved, the decision is sent to the government to initiate the draft law regarding the organization and development of the referendum for the suspension of the president.
According to the law of the referendum 32000, the participants to the referendum say “yes’ or “no” to the following question:” Do you agree to suspend the president of Romania?”. The law says that “ the suspension of the president of Romania is approved if it got the majority of votes validly expressed, at the level of the country, of the citizens who took part in the referendum”.