Gov’t: No institutional steps have been taken between the president and PM for a cabinet reshuffle.
PDL Vice-President Monica Macovei has said the reshuffle of secretaries of state and heads of agency is on its last lap. According to her, in ten days at most the party assessment commission will propose to PM Emil Boc the heads and agency and secretaries of state who should go.
‘The commission in charge of assessing performance of public officials has already heard 50-60 people – secretaries of state, heads of agency. It’s a very important thing, no other party has ever done it. And we are going to make decisions very soon. We will make proposals to the premier with the names of people who should go. It’s a clean-up, it’s a beginning,’ Macovei said on B1 TV Monday night. She would not say exactly how many officials would be sacked and who they were. She also said the proposed dismissals were unconnected with a possible replacement of ministers. Macovei did say that the PDL commission included Gheorghe Flutur and Ioan Oltean.
Macovei is determined to clean-up the party, warning that she may decide to quit PDL if the party continued to promote incompetent people to public offices. Macovei stated also on B1 TV that she had set a time limit for the ‘battles’ she had to fight in PDL. Asked what could cause her to leave PDL, Monica Macovei answered: ‘If they continue this policy of promoting people who are incompetent and who have integrity issues.’ She gave the example of the appointment of the Insurance Overseeing Board (CSA) and of the Ombudsman. About the head of CSA, the PDL vice-president noted ‘the BPN had voted for Mr. Constantinescu but another person was nominated in the full assembly of Parliament.’ About the Ombudsman, Macovei said that ever during the summer she had been trying to convince the PDL BPN that ‘Gheorghe Iancu was not the right person’ for the post.
The PDL leaders and heads of county organisations decided during their Villa Lac meeting on Sunday that a possible Cabinet reshuffle would be decided by PM Emil Boc together with President Traian Basescu. In the context, one of the Democrat-Liberal secretaries executive, Gheorghe Albu, said he was ‘gladly’ and ‘impatiently’ waiting to hear that the government is reshuffled. On the other hand, yesterday, the government said no institutional steps had been taken between the president of Romania and the prime-minister for a cabinet reshuffle and therefore the subject ‘is not of current interest.’ ‘Under article 85, paragraph 2 in the Romanian Constitution, the reshuffling is done by the president, at the proposal of the prime-minister,’ Mediafax informs quoting a government release.
PDL spokesman Sever Voinescu said too that, for the moment, the reshuffle was ‘more a press subject than a theme on PDL’s agenda. ‘No one knows anything. I can see that, for now, media is more concerned about the reshuffle than the party is,’ he said.
Debate stumbles over re-organisation and electoral system
If in the case of the government reshuffle things are clear, as the decision is to be made by the PM and the president, other things require debates in the coalition, many of which stumble over UDMR’s opposition. While PDL wants the plurality voting system in combination with a national compensating scheme according to the number of votes obtained in constituencies, UDMR pleads for the list-based compensating system. According to Hotnews, PDL, UDMR, UNPR and the minorities will meet today on the coalition commission debating the electoral law for further negotiations. On the other hand, ‘Adevarul’ daily says the disagreement between PDL and UDMR gives the opposition time to reinforce its positions, as the Democrat Liberals are planning to erase electoral districts where opposition MPs won back in 2008.
