Mediaboss Marketing

The fact that the liberals want to unseat the Ponta Government and come to power as soon as possible is a desideratum that has kept being repeated by the PNL leaders since the presidential election.

The last time, PNL Co-president Alina Gorghiu said in an interview on Adevarul Live on Friday that the liberals would come to power much sooner than PM Victor Ponta expected. For its no-confidence vote to be successful and bring down the Ponta Government, PNL needs the backing of UDMR, PMP, UNPR and National Minorities MPs, or at least of most of them.

If the no-confidence vote is initiated and fail, a new one may only be introduced during the Parliament season in the autumn. For a no-confidence vote to be adopted there must be a minimum of 287 votes in favour.

Currently, the new PNL has a total of 171 MPs. The first the liberals will try to convince to come with them are the 26 MPs of UDMR. UDMR left PSDs side and the ruling coalition, but party President Kelemen Hunor has not made any firm statements in support of the no-confidence vote so far and says the initiators should say what will happen if the motion is adopted, what government and programme they will have.

The Liberals trust that the 13 Popular Movement Party (PMP) MPs will also vote to dismiss the Ponta Government; however they say they will not negotiate with them. Even so, they are still 64 votes short. On the other hand, the Government counts on its majority of 348 votes consisting of PSD, PC, UNPR and Calin Popescu Tariceanus group, unless the 48 UNPR MPs do not give in to the invitation made to them by the liberals more or less explicitly and formally, as well as through secret negotiations to convince Deputy Prime Minister Opreas progressives to quit the current ruling coalition and join the new PNL.

It is very difficult to obtain a majority leading to the adoption of the no-confidence vote without the support of UNPRs MPs, PNL Prime Vice President Ludovic Orban has recently said. The scales may not only be tipped by Gabriel Opreas UNPR MP, but also by various PSD MPs who may be contemplating joining the new parties that are to be founded by Mircea Geoana, Marian Vanghelie and Sebastian Ghita.

If the rumours at the beginning of last week, when the freshly ousted Geoana and Vanghelie were saying they already had from 50 to 100 PSD MPs unhappy with the current situation, became true, its obvious that PSD would have issues regarding its majority in Parliament.

It is still to be seen how things will unfold.

Read the original here:
Political calculations and odds of success of a no-confidence motion