The interim president of the Chamber of Deputies, the social democrat Alfred Simonis, said on Tuesday in Timisoara that the unification of local and parliamentary elections is unconstitutional and can only be applied under a state of emergency, Agerpres reports. Simonis emphasized that Romania has completely different priorities during this period.

“It is difficult to understand what the simplification of the election year means. The most simplified situation is that there would be no elections, it would be even more economical, but this is madness. Elections must be organized in a democratic environment, so I don’t see what it means to simplify them if we refer to the same few and fixed ideas that a number of PNL leaders refer to. We say (PSD, no) and we will repeat as much as you like: the combination of local and parliamentary elections is unconstitutional. This cannot happen physically, it can happen only in one scenario, but it is unconstitutional, according to which local elected officials, mayors are extended their powers for two months before the parliamentary elections. There was such an extension in 2020, when it was extended from June to September 27, but because we were in a pandemic, it was a state of emergency and elections could not be held. But in 2024, we know there will be an emergency, so the mandates of local elected officials can be extended?”, Alfred Simonis told the press.

The SDP deputy emphasized that if there is no state of emergency similar to the one in 2020, then there is no reason to unjustifiably extend the powers of local elected officials.

“Commissions and electoral changes in favor of a single party (NLP, no) belong in banana countries, not in democracies, as I like to think they are in Romania. In June 2024, we will have elections to the European Parliament, and the European Commission does not allow the European Parliament elections to be combined with any other type of election, because it is good for each election to be held separately (…). We have seen that the PNL wants this merger of local government with the parliament, but it is constitutionally impossible. In this period, Romania has completely different priorities, because we are talking about European funds, PNRR, the pension law and many other goals that Romania should shoot for this summer and autumn in order to attract tens of billions of euros, European money,” explained Simonis.

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