Parliament rejected the candidate for prime minister, Adrian Vestea.Image: keystone
June 23, 2026, 12:19 amJune 23, 2026, 12:19 am
Seven weeks after the fall of the pro-European reform government, the formation of a new government in EU and NATO country Romania has failed. Parliament rejected the candidate for prime minister, Adrian Vestea. He only got 189 votes, 23 parliamentarians voted against him. Vestea would have needed an absolute majority of 233 votes to be elected head of government and successor to Ilie Bolojan.
Only 212 of the 465 parliamentarians took part in the vote. Now President Nicusor Dan must propose a new candidate for this office to parliament. Dan had proposed the PNL politician Vestea for this office against the wishes of the PNL chairman Bolojan. On Sunday, a special party conference decided to expel Vestea and his supporters from the party. Other party committees must formally agree to this.
Desired pact with right-wing extremists failed
Vestea received support only from the opposition party PSD (Social Democrats) as well as from dissidents from the PNL and splinter groups. He had also negotiated with the far-right opposition party AUR to get support. Before the vote, however, the AUR group left the plenary hall.
Dan wanted to bring about a new edition of the PNL’s coalition with the PSD, which was criticized as corrupt, and which broke up more than a month ago. Boloyan and the majority of the PNL were strongly against it.
Bolojan, who was valued by many Romanians as being eager for reform and pro-European, was overthrown by parliament on May 5th with a vote of no confidence – at the request of the PSD, which had been in government until a few weeks ago, and the right-wing extremist AUR. The top priority of Bolojan, who has been in power for a year, was to rehabilitate the ailing state finances.
Until his fall, Bolojan governed at the head of a coalition made up of the PSD, PNL, the liberal-conservative reform party USR and the Hungarian party UDMR. At the end of April, PSD left the coalition. Mathematically, forming a pro-European majority in parliament without the PSD – the strongest parliamentary group – is difficult. Bolojan is currently governing provisionally. (sda/dpa)