The motion against the Bolojan Government has matched the record set by the motion against the Cîțu cabinet / AUR, the common denominator of both motions.

The censure motion submitted by PSD-AUR "STOP 'Bolojan's Plan' to destroy the economy, impoverish the population, and fraudulently sell state assets" equaled on Tuesday the number of votes accumulated for the fall of the Ciucă Government in 2021, which until now held the record for votes "for". An interesting observation is that both motions succeeded in passing due to the contribution of AUR. In fact, Politico described AUR leader George Simion as the "brain behind Ilie Bolojan's fall".

If we look at the history of governments that fell through censure motions after 1990, the Bolojan and Ciucă governments gathered the most votes in favor, respectively 281.

The first government dismissed by a censure motion, the Emil Boc I Government, invested on December 22, 2008, was dismissed by a censure motion on October 13, 2009, after 295 days in office with a motion initiated by PNL and UDMR, which passed with 254 votes for and 176 against.

The Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu Government was invested on February 9, 2012, and dismissed on April 27, 2012, after only 78 days, making it the shortest post-December mandate. The motion "Stop the blackmailing government. Not like this, never!" passed with 235 votes for.

The Sorin Grindeanu Government, invested on January 4, 2017, fell on June 20, 2017, after 167 days in office. The censure motion gathered 241 votes for.

The Viorica Dăncilă Government, invested on January 29, 2018, was dismissed on October 10, 2019, after approximately 645 days in office after the motion passed with 238 votes.

The Ludovic Orban I Government, invested on November 4, 2019, was dismissed on February 5, 2020, after 94 days, after the motion passed with 261 votes for and 139 against.

Last but not least, the Florin Cîțu Government, invested on December 23, 2020, and dismissed on October 5, 2021, fell after 286 days, after the motion gathered 281 votes for.

The motion voted on Tuesday in the Romanian Parliament gathered 281 votes and 4 votes against, while votes were annulled from 288 expressed votes.

AUR's Position Regarding the Bolojan Government

In the current crisis, AUR was one of the direct initiators of the censure motion against the Bolojan Government, alongside PSD and PACE, explicitly assuming the political paternity of the initiative. The text of the motion is radically formulated ("STOP 'Bolojan's Plan' to destroy the economy, impoverish the population, and fraudulently sell state assets"), which shows that AUR positions itself as a maximalist attacker, as a "defender of national wealth" and of the "impoverished citizen".

AUR leaders publicly announced that they would gather signatures for the motion. Dan Dungaciu, the first vice-president of AUR, even said that early elections are the solution. Statements from the AUR area - "the fall of the Bolojan Government is a step towards early elections", "there is no possibility for the current or former coalition to be repaired" - show that the party uses the motion not only as a punctual sanction but as part of a restructuring plan, from which it hopes to emerge as the main electoral beneficiary. In fact, an INSCOP poll from April 15 showed that although AUR dropped below 40% remains a leader and continues to lead detached in the preferences of Romanians for parliamentary elections.

AUR's Position Regarding the Ciucă Government

The approximate share of AUR votes in 2021 for the fall of the Ciucă Government was about 14-16%, while for the fall of the Bolojan Government, the share of AUR votes was about 32% of the total "for" votes, under conditions where it has 90 parliamentarians and all voted for the motion.

In 2021, AUR's role in the fall of the Ciucă Government was important especially in terms of political legitimacy, but the decisive numerical factor came from the PNL-USR rupture and the realignment of the opposition. AUR was a co-initiator of the first censure motion against Ciucă, alongside USR PLUS, a moment that the then-prime minister exploited in the media to delegitimize both AUR and USR, accusing them of forming a "sad alliance" and of giving legitimacy to an "extremist" party.

In Ciucă's logic, the simple fact that USR signed the motion initiated together with AUR transformed the gesture into a betrayal of the "sanitary cordon" against extremism, which further strained relations within the coalition. AUR, however, did not control the parliamentary game: its score was insufficient to bring down the government alone and depended on fractures within the majority and the alignment of PSD. Its role was that of a trigger and amplifier of the crisis, not the main architect of the anti-Ciucă majority.

In comparison with the Bolojan situation, AUR at that time was still in a consolidation phase, "had not yet shown its true face", as even political opponents later acknowledged, and did not have the infrastructure and visibility of today to impose a scenario of early elections on its own. Therefore, in the case of Ciucă, AUR was rather the radical vector of contestation, which pushed the discourse and agenda towards the motion, but the final result depended on the reconfigurations within the system (the PNL-USR rupture, PSD's calculations), not on its own capacity for negotiation and construction of majorities.

George Simion, the brain behind Bolojan's dismissal

Politico describes George Simion as the brain behind Bolojan's fall, the leader of a radical right on the rise, who takes advantage of the crisis to consolidate his influence. He appears as the architect of the alliance with PSD and the main political beneficiary of the government's collapse, in a context of contested austerity and economic vulnerability. Simion is presented as a populist-nationalist figure, recently defeated in the presidential elections, but capable of transforming the motion into a strategic step towards increasing AUR during a prolonged period of instability.

Analysis conducted with the help of Perplexity