Lower Chamber Meeting Ends In Scandal As Opposition Tries To Dismiss Chairman

Liberal Party (PNL) group leader Raluca Turcan proposed a vote for the dismissal of both Dragnea and Iordache, stating that the ruling coalition has lost the majority in the chamber.

Her request was rejected by deputy chairman Florin Iordache, who presided the meeting, on the basis that chamber regulations state that such requests can only be filed by the chairmen’s parliamentary group.

Opposition MPs argued however that a 2012 Constitutional Court decision makes a vote mandatory in cases where the political majority is uncertain.

Amid the scandal, opposition deputy chairman Marilen Pintea announced that he will be chairing the meeting by rotation and called for a vote to extend the meeting, carrying on with the procedure despite having his microphone muted by actual chair.

Following the incident, Florin Iordache decided to close the meeting without holding the votes. With opposition MPs leaving the plenary room in protest, the following meeting, scheduled to hold final votes on previously debated bills, lacked the necessary quorum to begin.

Opposition parties initially announced in September that they will seek to start the procedure for dismissing Dragnea and Iordache, but the ruling PSD-ALDE coalition held that only their parliamentary groups can start it.

The ruling coalition’s majority in the ruling chamber was called into question, after several social-democrat MPs left the party’s parliamentary group in the past couple of weeks.