Behind the scenes. Why the PSD cannot postpone the parliamentary elections. Agreement with NLP. Only the pandemic can change the plan

The Constitutional Court (ICR) has ruled that Parliament should set a date for parliamentary elections, not the Government, as has been the case for the past 30 years. CCR is dominated by a PSD majority. Parliament, in turn, is still controlled by the PSD, and the Social Democrats also initiated the law that transferred power from Government to Parliament. Despite the help from the Court, the PSD is forced to swallow the plan devised by the Iohannis-PNL binomial. Why?

At this time, the government’s decision is in force, which set the date of the parliamentary elections for December 6, as President Klaus Iohannis and Prime Minister Ludovic Orban want. CCR alleges that this government decision ceases to have effect when the PSD law enters into force, by which Parliament receives the power to decide the date of the elections. But there are still some procedural steps left before enactment. A ping-pong between PSD and PNL will follow. President Klaus Iohannis has no interest in enacting the PSD law, so it will take time – he has 10 days to analyze. It will then send the law to Parliament for reconsideration. Even if the Social Democrats debate it in the emergency procedure, it still takes at least two days to pass the two Houses. Then the NLP can appeal it to the Court again, with the obvious objective of taking time, because the CCR magistrates will not change their opinion from one month to the next. Depending on the calendar, the law can reach the court table as of October 30. Suppose that the decision will arrive as quickly as possible, but it still takes a few days for the paperwork: opinion of the parties, deliberation, decision, motivation. Therefore, a new ruling from the Court, even if it is foreseeable pro-PSD, cannot arrive before mid-November, when we will already be in full electoral campaign for the parliamentary elections. Under the Constitution, President Iohannis has 10 days to think again, but this time he is obliged to enact the PSD project. That would mean that the law goes into effect exactly one week before the elections. Theoretically, in the last days of the campaign, the Government Decision that set the parliamentary elections for December 6 could be repealed by the PSD law, recently enacted by Iohannis. It appears that there will be widespread chaos, which could lead to postponement of the elections in the last hundred meters. False! The government has the last word.

Any law promulgated by the President shall enter into force three days after its publication in the Official Gazette. During this three-day period, the Orban Executive can propose an emergency ordinance to repeal or extend the PSD law. The emergency ordinance goes into effect immediately, so it has a lethal effect on the PSD law. Subsequently, any GEO can be challenged in the ICR by the Ombudsman, but in this case it will be too late: parliamentary elections will be approved until a later decision of the Court. Therefore, any attempt by the Social Democrats to postpone the March parliamentary elections is doomed from a legal point of view. “The truth is that the Government has the nuclear option in hand: the emergency ordinance. So, the postponement of the elections depends on the Iohannis-Orban tandem, not the PSD. Iohannis has already said that he wants elections in December, therefore only a medical disaster can change the date of the elections, “says one of Adevărul’s PSD lawyers. According to the sources cited, the Social Democratic leaders fear that Iohannis will accuse the PSD in the campaign not to take power, a speech that would affect the outcome of the party.

COVID-19, stronger than PSD

Leaders from both sides affirm that from the beginning there was an agreement between PSD and PNL for December 6, despite the public front war. “Both the date of the local elections and the date of the parliamentary elections were negotiated by Orban and Ciolacu. The candidate lists are almost ready, the campaign will start in less than a month. Nobody cares to wait for spring. Of course, if the medical system collapses and Iohannis will be forced to declare a state of emergency, then it will be postponed, but I don’t think we will reach this apocalyptic scenario, ”says one of the PSD vice-presidents of Adevărul. According to the Constitution, if Romania enters a state of emergency again, as happened in the spring, Parliament’s mandate will be automatically extended until it returns to normal.

And liberals believe that the pandemic is the only opponent that can postpone the elections. “Legally speaking, any law given by PSD can be overridden by GEO. Our problem is the damn virus. We hope that the daily number of diseases will fall below 3000 cases. Of course, we want elections, because this situation in which we have the Government, but the PSD has a majority in Parliament, it can no longer continue, “says one of the vice-presidents of the PNL for Adevărul. Until December, the PSD will accuse the PNL of endangering people’s lives by stubbornly holding elections , and NLP will accuse PSD of not giving up privileges in any way.