Popular Support for Sacking the Parliament Speakers Unclear

Some 50% of Romanians agree with the planned change of the Speakers for both the Senate and the House of Parliament, though many agree that vendetta prompts the ruling coalition to make such a move sboth speakers are Social Democrat Party members, in opposition, trans. notet.

The finding appeared in a poll conducted by the Group for Social Studies between 18 and 25 August.

Some 55.6% of respondents agreed with forcing Nicolae Vacaroiu, the Senate Speaker, to step down, while the remaining 44.3% did not answer or did not have one. Also, when asked to evaluate such a move, 45.4% said it would be a positive thing, 36.5% said it would be a negative one, while 17.9% provided no answer.

When asked if they believed Vacaroiu was indeed blocking the legislative initiatives of the ruling coalition, the respondents said no - 54.05% of them, and yes - 45.9% of them.

When asked if they believed the ruling coalition was trying to reprimand the opposition, 47.3% of the respondents said yes, 33.4% said no, and 19.24% of them did not answer.

The GSS poll also shows that 52.8% of the respondents agreed with sacking Adrian Nastase from his position of House Speaker, while 47.2% were against the move. Also, some 41.5% of respondents said it was a good thing to take Nastase out of office, while 38.2% deemed it a bad thing, and 20.2% did not answer.

As in Vacaroiu’s case, a majority of respondents - some 46.5% - agreed this was an act of political revenge, while 34.7% disagreed, and 18.7% did not answer.

When asked if things would improve or deteriorate if Vacaroiu and Nastase would lose their current positions, some 28.9% of respondents said they will go better, 27.02% said they will go worse, and 3.95% said they will stay the same, and 12.05% could not give an answer.

The poll was conducted on a representative sample of 1,082 citizens over 18, and has a margin of error of 3%.

The Parliament will convene this week in extraordinary session to remove the House and Senate Speakers from office. The Senate will start working on Monday, while the House Permanent Ruling Committee still has to decide upon a date.

House member Nicolae Titu Gheorghiof, of the National Liberal Party, confirmed he was short listed, along Dan Radu Rusanu, for the top job in the House of Deputies. "The final decision on that is still to be taken by the NLP ruling body," added Gheorghiof, who serves now as secretary of the House Permanent Committee.

Radu Berceanu, of the Democrat Party, has the support of his party to become Speaker of the Senate, since the two top positions are to be parted between the two major parties in the ruling coalition, the DP and the NLP.