Romania – President Klaus Iohannis rejected the nomination of the country’s first ever Muslim – and woman – candidate for Prime Minister, Sevil Shhaideh.
After winning the election early December, the PSD – Social Democrats – had to nominate a candidate for the office of Prime Minister. The president of the PSD, Liviu Dragnea is unable to become Prime Minister as he has been preliminarly refused by President Iohannis for he has been convicted for electoral fraud. Hence, he proposed Sevil Shhaideh, and it was likely he’d run the government through her.
Although President Klaus Iohannis asked the Social Democrats to pick someone else to lead the government, but he did not give any reason for this rejection. Mr Dragnea has previously suggested he will fight any attempt by the president to block his choice of Prime Minister. “If Iohannis rejects our proposal, I’m not going to make a second one. We’ll see each other in some other place,” he said.
Following the rejection, Mr Dragnea said he could begin the process of seeking to remove Mr Iohannis as president. “It seems the president clearly wants to be suspended,” Mr Dragnea said. “We’ll weigh our options very carefully, because we don’t want to take emotional decisions. We don’t want to trigger a political crisis for nothing, but if we come to the conclusion that the president must be suspended, I won’t hesitate.” As a matter of fact, several political observers claim that the two refusals – the first one, unofficial, of Dragnea, and the second one of Shhaideh – are unconstitutional.
Eventually, on December 28, Mr Dragnea proposed Sorin Grindeanu as candidate for Prime Minister. President Iohannis is expected to name the Prime Minister on December 29. According to the Romanian constitution, if these candidate is not nominated by the President, the parliament will be dissolved and new elections will be held.
