Junior Partner Leaves Romania Govt Coalition, PM Vows to Carry On

UDMR ethnic Hungarian party, a junior partner in Romania's government coalition, has decided to leave it following the defeat of Social Democrat Prime Minister Victor Ponta in presidential elections.

Yet, Ponta's centre-left coalition will stay in power as its remaining members - the Social Democrats and two junior partners - together control 332 of the 579 seats in Parliament.

"Even without us, the Ponta Government has majority. Political stability does not depend on our participation in the Government,"Mediafax quoted UDMR leader Kelemen Hunor as saying on Thursday.

"According to our calculations, 80 percent of our voters voted in the second round of the presidential elections for Klaus Iohannis. We decided to strengthen our relationship with voters," the UDMR leader said.

Ponta told reporters in Bucharest on Thursday he plans to replace some ministers and add the newly formed party of former Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu to the coalition after sending the 2015 budget draft to parliament on 10 December.

Meanwhile, some Social Democrat leaders have started to ask for a party congress to be convened in early 2015 after Ponta lost a run-off vote for president earlier this month to Sibiu Mayor and head of opposition centre-right National Liberal Party Klaus Iohannis, an ethnic German politician.

Iohannis said in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday that enough lawmakers could start abandoning Ponta's coalition in the coming weeks to bring down the government next year.