The senators of the ruling Liberal Party (PNL) refused to attend the Senate's meeting on November 11, thus boycotting the opposition's attempt to reschedule the general elections.

Only 58 senators of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) attended the meeting, which was called off for lack of quorum, G4media.ro reported. PSD probably agreed to abandon its efforts to defer the general elections since it has rejected an online meeting until now.

Another important bill on the Senate's agenda was an initiative for scheduling an anticorruption public referendum alongside the general elections. The initiative aims to include in the Constitution an article that bans convicted people from public office.

The initiative authored by the reformist Save Romania Union (USR) has been formally endorsed by PNL as well. But USR members accused both PSD and PNL of plotting against the bill by their mutual boycott. USR accused PSD, which controls the Senate's leading body, of refusing the online voting precisely to prevent the anticorruption initiative and blamed PNL for "siding with PSD."

More precisely, PNL senators claimed that they were ready to attend the meeting, but only to vote for the anticorruption initiative.

It remains unclear why the PNL senators eventually refused to attend the Senate's meeting - but USR senators have also boycotted the meeting.

"We will participate only if we can help reach the quorum," PNL senator Alina Gorghiu said.

Such a scenario was ab-initio nearly impossible -, but PNL attending the meeting would have resulted in a quorum, hence the validation of the anticorruption initiative.

"As we have done so far, we will boycott the plenary session of the Senate, as we do not want to give PSD the opportunity to obtain the annulment of the parliamentary elections of December 6," she added on an ambiguous note. 

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andrei@romania-insider.com