Eurasia Press & News
The former ruling Democratic Liberal Party has decided to elect its new president on June 30With less than six months before crucial parliamentary elections, the members of the former ruling centre-right Democratic Liberal Party, PDL, has decided to vote for a new leadership in an extraordinary congress scheduled for June 30.The decision was approved on Sunday by the PDL’s National College with 36 votes in favour and 14 against.
“We have decided to elect the new party leader quickly. It is a must,” said the PDL’s ex-president, Emil Boc. Furthermore, he announced he would not seek re-election in order to concentrate on his new position as the mayor of his hometown of Cluj in the central Transylvania.
Boc, who was Romania’s prime minister between 2008 and April 2012, decided to resign from the leadership of the party on Thursday, citing the need for radical change following the party’s crushing defeat in the mayoral elections on June 10.
Other senior members also resigned alongside Boc, leaving the party without its core management team as it prepares for the parliamentary elections expected to take place by the end of this year.
The centre-right Democratic Liberal Party won just 13 per cent of votes in the recent local elections, well down on its 33 per cent showing in the elections in 2008.
On the other hand, the ruling Social Liberal Union, USL, got around 51 per cent in the elections.
Unpopular measures taken in 2010, when Emil Boc was Prime Minister, including a 25-per-cent cut in the public sector pay and a 5-percentage increase in VAT, badly damaged PDL support.
The PDL lost its majority in the parliament following a no-confidence vote on April 27.
Many analysts say that the PDL steered Romania out of crisis and that the measures taken by the party were correct but they have damaged the party’s image and ultimately the number of votes it received in recent elections.
