BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) – Romania’s Parliament is preparing to vote Wednesday on a new left-leaning Cabinet that includes an economist who had been poised to become the country’s first female and Muslim prime minister.
President Klaus Iohannis declined to nominate Sevil Shhaideh as premier and she has now been put forward as deputy premier and regional development minister before Wednesday’s vote.
Iohannis said he wouldn’t nominate Shhaideh, a political novice and member of Romania’s small Muslim minority, to the top job in the government, after it emerged that her Syrian-born husband, who had worked at the Syrian agriculture ministry, had posted in favor of President Bashar Assad on social media.
There are concerns that the coalition government – which has 26 ministers, four more ministerial posts than the previous technocrat-led government – may seek to slow down Romania’s anti-corruption fight.
The chairman of the Social Democratic Party, Liviu Dragnea, can’t be prime minister because he was convicted of election fraud last year. But he is expected to exercise influence over the future government headed by ally Sorin Grindeanu, a regional politician.
Grindeanu will read out the 170-page governing program later in Parliament, which proposes to raise the minimum wage, to hike pensions and student grants.
Dragnea says a law that prevents him being premier is unfair and there is speculation that Parliament may seek to change the legislation.