🟦❌🟨 The general secretary of the National Liberal Party, Lucian Bode instructed the heads of the 41 regional branches of PNL to ask the Central Election Bureau (BEC) for the exclusion of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) from the 2024 local elections.

The motive? In February of this year, the liberal-social-democrat government pushed an emergency government ordinance (OUG) which required parties to register an "official election symbol" with BEC. The OUG was voted into law in early March, taking effect on March 8th. Once in effect, the OUG had a 1 month deadline for all parties to register this election symbol and AUR reportedly failed to do so by April 10th.

Without this election symbol a party can be disqualified.

For anyone wondering an OUG is a method through which the government can pass legislation even though, constitutionally speaking, it is barred from doing so and only the Parliament is allowed to pass laws. OUGs are government acts which have the same force as laws and with this power, the Romanian government is de-facto a 2nd legislative power beside the Romanian parliament. Of course, the Parliament rarely ever votes against and OUG or any draft that is proposed by any ministry because the government usually enjoys a parliamentary majority.

When the OUG was introduced in the Constitution it was argued that the Parliament could take too long to pass a law and Romania needed a quicker way to pass legislation, in extraordinary circumstances. All the Parliament had to do was read the draft and vote it, with the possibility of adding amendments. Of course, the government must justify the "emergency" when passing the ordinance but the justification is rarely scrutinised and the OUG is rarely shot down by the parliament.

Remains to be seen what happens with AUR next.

🔗 https://www.hotnews.ro/stiri-alegeri2024-27082355-exclusiv-directiva-pnl-pentru-toti-sefii-din-judete-solicitati-respingerea-aliantei-aur-birourile-electorale-descoperit.htm