BUCHAREST, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- Romania's parliamentary majority on Wednesday proposed Sorin Grindeanu as the candidate for prime minister, temporarily easing the political crisis occurred after their previous nomination was rejected by the president.
Grindeanu, 43, has been a Social Democrat since 1996 and was Minister for Information Society between December 2014 and November 2015.
The nomination was made a day after President Klaus Iohannis rejected the first nomination of Sevil Shhaideh, a female Muslim from the ethnic Tatar minority.
The rejection deepened the political rift between he president and the party of the Social Democrats, whoes leader said previously that their nomination was unique, and there would be no new nomination in the case of being rejected.
To explain the consideration behind the new proposal, Social Democrats' leader Liviu Dragnea said the party decided not to take a radical step to impeach the president to ensure the stability of the country.
"Indeed, we have a very powerful weapon at hand, a force which is represented by parliamentary majority," said the leader of the party that holds over 47 percent of seats in the new parliament.
The Social Democrats won the parliamentary elections on Dec. 11, and formed a coalition with their partner the Alliance of Democrats and Liberals, which gave the ruling coalition an outright majority of 250 seats in the 465-member bicameral parliament.
"A trend has surely been building up in recent days, thousands of messages poured in...asking us to move to suspend the president," said Dragnea. underscoring yet that the Social Democrats are not irresponsibly making use of political force "to harm or greatly disrupt this country and the lives of the Romanians."
After naming the new candidate, Dragnea said on Wednesday that he hoped the new candidate would be taken seriously by the president.
"We decided to make a last attempt to avoid a political crisis," said Dragnea.
Calin Popescu-Tariceanu, Senate Speaker and co-Chair of the Alliance for Liberals and Democrats, also warned against another rejection by the president, saying it would be "suicidal."
The candidate Grindeanu, incumbent chairman of Timis County Council after the local election in June 2016, said that he received a great responsibility from the leadership of the party.
"I feel this responsibility on my back, not just the vote that I have received today from my colleagues, but for the Romanians' vote for a government programme that we have to put into practice," said the PM candidate, stating that he will not make political movements in the government without the agreement of his colleagues.
