Sorin Campeanu has taken the hot seat, replacing Victor Ponta who resigned on Wednesday amid demonstrations nationwide following a deadly nightclub fire.
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Ponta has proposed Defense Minister Mircea Dusa as interim prime minister.
In the case, which began in September, Ponta stands accused of forgery, money-laundering and being an accessory to tax evasion during his years working as a lawyer. A few 90 people remain hospitalized in serious or critical condition in hospitals around the capital, many suffering from burns.
The European Union has been taking steps to crack down on corruption in Romania, which joined the bloc in 2007 and ranked as its most corrupt country in Transparency International’s 2014 corruption perceptions index. The club where the fire took place was operating without proper health and safety authorizations, with local authorities quietly ignoring the situation.
“People want a change in the system”, protester Marius Matache told AFP. “Something has to change in Romania”.
President Klaus Iohannis will name the caretaker premier later Thursday. “We risk ruining everything we built”.
Thousands demonstrated this week demanding early elections and better governance.
On Wednesday evening, demonstrators have boldly marched and gathered around University Square, an area known for anti-government rallies in Central Bucharest, and shouting, “Get out of your homes if you care” and “Don’t be afraid, the country is rising up”. “If there are no clean politicians at the moment, then let’s have a technocratic government formed from the many specialised people we have in our country”, said protester, Bogdan. It would need either volunteer resignations by all of parliament’s political groupings or two consecutive votes of no-confidence against two prime minister nominees within 60 days of the first nomination, a hard requirement to meet.
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Public discontent with the church is at an all-time high after it failed to address an outpouring of national grief. His resignation was quickly followed by that of Cristian Piedone Popescu, one of Bucharest’s district mayors, in whose jurisdiction the club was located.
