THE SEMI-PRESIDENTIAL ONE

This is a series of posts that records the cases of cohabitation in countries with semi-presidential constitutions. Cohabitation is defined as the situation where the president and prime minister are from different parties and where the president’s party is not represented in the cabinet. Presidents classed as non-party cannot generate any periods of cohabitation.

Here is my list of cohabitations in Romania:

Apr 2007- Dec 2008

President - Traian Băsescu (PD/PD-L); PM - Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu (PNL); Coalition – PNL, UDMR

Here, the president’s party was in the governing coalition after the 2004 election. However, it left government in April 2007 at the time when President Băsescu was being impeached by parliament with support from members of the PNL.

There are articles (in English and French) on the impeachment and the subsequent referendum here and here and in European Journal of Political Research, vol. 47, pp. 1115–1126, 2008.

Romania is a very interesting example because, with the exception of Sao Tome, it is the only case where cohabitation has begun outside an election (presidential or legislative).

Source of party affiliations: http://www.worldstatesmen.org/Romania.htm

Party abbreviations:

PD-L (Democratic Liberal Party)

PNL (National Liberal Party)

UDMR (Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania)

Previous posts in this series: