Romanian government reshuffled

06/09/2010

The Boc administration responds to sagging poll numbers and criticism by sacking six ministers.

By Paul Ciocoiu for Southeast European Times in Bucharest – 06/09/10

Prime Minister Emil Boc replaced six cabinet ministers in a bid to improve the government's performance. [Getty Images]

After months of pressure from within his party's ranks, Romanian Prime Minister Emil Boc announced a government shuffle late last week. Public discontent over the performance of certain ministers has severely hurt the popularity of Boc's Liberal Democrats, the main party in the tripartite ruling coalition.

The centrist party, which garnered around 30% of the vote in late 2008 elections, has already faced grumblings over austerity measures adopted in the face of economic recession. A recent poll published by IRES shows the rate of confidence in the party has sunk to 18%.

Among those voicing dissatisfaction with the administration's performance was President Traian Basescu, who warned Boc in early July that September would bring with it the "invoice of the government's responsibility".

Six Liberal Democrat ministers were replaced in the reshuffle Thursday (September 2nd). They include Labour Minister Mihai Seitan and Finance Minister Sebastian Vladescu, who fueled controversy with some of their recent public statements.

Seitan, for instance, predicted that public sector salaries, slashed by 25% as of July, will return to pre-austerity levels next year. To his embarrassment, the prime minister quickly refuted such calculations. The ministers of Agriculture, Economy, Communication and Transport were also changed.

Boc's move came as the opposition pushes for a vote of confidence in parliament. The government's main adversary, the Social Democrats (PSD), have denounced the reshuffle as inefficient.

"Unfortunately, as I suspected, the reshuffle doesn't give oxygen and vigour to a tired government, but carries instead the signs of an internal party square off," PSD Secretary General Adrian Nastase wrote in his blog.

Many analysts see the reshuffle as an improvised political move. "It wasn't designed to render the government's activity more effective or to give the anti-crisis fight a new impetus," Silviu Sergiu, senior political editor at the newspaper Evenimentul Zilei, told SETimes. "Behind it was only the fight inside the ruling party, given that next year it will choose a new leadership."

"This is why the ministers appointed in the new executive are not people who showed competence in the fields they will run from now on, but merely names that cropped up during negotiations among the power groups inside the PDL. For instance, Adriean Videanu, the former economy minister, made sure he will keep control over the portfolio, which has been taken over by an old friend of his, Ion Ariton," Sergiu said.

"The new ministers are not outstanding members of the party, because no major Liberal Democrat figure was willing to expose himself or herself politically given the circumstances -- namely, that living standards are continuously going down and along with them, the government's credibility," he said.