Romanian government defies calls to quit after mass protests force U-turn

BUCHAREST (Reuters) – Romania’s leftist-led government, in power barely a month, rejected calls on Monday to resign after mass street protests forced it to scrap a decree on corruption, but there was confusion over its plans for the criminal code.

Following the largest protests since the fall of communism in 1989, the Social Democrat-led government on Sunday rescinded the decree, which would have shielded dozens of politicians from prosecution.

Political analysts said the government now faces an uphill task restoring shattered public confidence, and even after its embarrassing U-turn, around 250,000 protesters chanted late on Sunday: “We don’t believe you.”

Some said they would protest daily until parliament confirms the withdrawal of the decree, while others said only the government’s resignation would satisfy them.

Social Democrat Party (PSD) leader Liviu Dragnea, the protesters’ chief target, sounded a defiant note on Monday after chairing a meeting of senior party officials, and he reiterated its support for Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu.

“The government has no reason to resign, it was legitimately elected,” Dragnea told reporters.

But the scenes of Romanians thronging Bucharest’s broad boulevards and other cities every evening since January 31 have clearly shaken the PSD, and they will not have gone unnoticed elsewhere across Eastern Europe, blighted by corruption and cozy ties between business and politics since the end of communism.

“They [Romania’s leaders] are deeply scared by these huge protests, unprecedented in 27 years,” independent political commentator Cristian Patrasconiu said. “This amounts to more than a simple step back. Any new move by them needs assessment. Everything looks suspicious.”

The decree, issued late in the evening on January 31 by the cabinet without parliamentary debate, was designed to decriminalize a number of graft offenses, cut prison terms for others and narrow the definition of conflict-of-interest.

The government said it was merely bringing the criminal code into line with recent rulings by the Constitutional Court and an EU legal directive to member states to consolidate some aspects of presumption of innocence, as well as to ease jail overcrowding.

But the opposition, anti-corruption prosecutors, magistrates and hundreds of thousands of Romanian protesters said it had been tailor-made to amnesty dozens of politically affiliated public officials convicted or accused of abuse of office.