PM Orban says late September - early October good time to hold local elections

Late September - early October could be a good time for organising the local elections, Prime Minister Ludovic Orban said on Thursday at Mioveni, Arges County.

"According to our current reckonings, late September - early October could be a good time to organise the elections. The difference of opinion between us and the Social Democratic Party (PSD)-led majority in Parliament is that we believe that it is the government to pick the date of the elections and the conditions for the organisation of the elections, as it has been until now, while Parliament has passed a law, which we have challenged with the Constitutional Court, under which they established their power to set the date of the elections by law adopted by Parliament," Orban said.

He pointed out that the elections must be organised when the epidemiological conditions will allow the conduct of electioneering activities.

"There is a difference of vision between the government and the parliamentary majority controlled by PSD; we have adopted an emergency ordinance extending the mandate of elected local officials, and our intention is to organise elections when epidemiological conditions allow us to run a normal electioneering, when the candidates to the offices of mayor, local councilor, county councilor can make serious campaigning, and the citizens can trust to follow the campaigning and vote fully knowing what they vote for," said Orban.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Ludovic Orban paid a visit to the Dacia Mioveni Plant, and held a press conference at the end of it.