Prime Minister Ludovic Orban said on Monday that the daily coronavirus caseload registered in the last two weeks allows the organisation of local elections.
“If we look at developments in the last two weeks, we can see that we have managed to stop the growth. This is quite important. There is an extremely small rise in the number of cases, and looking at the numbers by weeks, we can see that there is a clear limitation of the virus spread. Of course, whatever measure the government would take, no matter how many fines we would hand down, no matter how many decisions on the organization of various activity types we would take, we need the collaboration of the people. The more Romanians respect the rules, the lesser the virus spread risk. From my point of view, at the daily caseload in the past 2 weeks, the elections can be organized,” Orban said at the PNL headquarters, when asked if the local elections slated for September 27 can be held under the current conditions.
The PM added that there should be no problem with organizing the ballot, provided that all candidates, campaigners and citizens respect the health protection rules.
“Once the campaign and voting rules to minimize the virus spread risk are adopted, there is no problem with holding the elections. Note that Poland, for example, has held presidential elections, there have been parliamentary elections in Croatia. There are countries that organized elections and where this did not result in a higher number of infections, provided that all candidates, all party campaigners and the citizens in general comply with health protection rules,” Orban said, according to Agerpres.
Minimum pension to rise by similar percentage that we will decide for pension point increase
Prime Minister Ludovic Orban said on Monday that the decision on the percentage increase in pensions will be made this week, stating that the minimum pension will also be increased by a percentage similar to the pension point.
When asked about the percentage increase in pensions, Orban said that the decision will “certainly be made this week” and he will make it public.
“We had this discussion to increase the minimum pension by the percentage by which the pension point is increased, we had this discussion and I can tell you that the social pension or the minimum pension will rise by a similar percentage that we will decide for the increase of the pension point,” said the prime minister.
He noted that the increased amounts will certainly be included in the budget. “We will certainly finance them, since we have made such a decision, we have made the decision so that we can finance any expenditure that is included in the budget,” Orban added.
