BUCHAREST, June 26 (Xinhua) -- Romanian President Klaus Iohannis designated Social Democrat Mihai Tudose as new prime minister on Monday, accepting the candidate proposed by the parliamentary majority to lead the government.
The decision paves the way for the rapid formation of the new government, easing days of political instability that could discourage foreign investors.
"The crisis we are going through...seriously harms Romania. It harms the Romanian economy, the image of Romania in the world," Iohannis said at Cotroceni Presidential Palace when announcing his decision, stressing that "the crisis must end as soon as possible".
"We must have as soon as possible a new government, a government that will begin to solve the problems that have remained unresolved."
Liviu Dragnea, leader of the main ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD), said a new government would be approved in parliament on Thursday in a vote of confidence supported by the majority formed together with Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE).
According to sources of the coalition, there will be no substantive change in the composition of the government and in the distribution of ministers between the two ruling parties, while most of the ministers of the previous cabinet will continue to serve in the new government.
Prime minister-designate Tudose, 50, is the acting Minister of Economy in the government led by Sorin Grindeanu that was dismissed by a motion of censure last week. He had been in the same position from December 2014 to November 2015 in a previous social democratic government.
He is a PSD deputy and for 13 years the chairman of the Commission for Economic Policy, Reform and Privatization of the Chamber of Deputies.
Under the Constitution, the designated prime minister has 10 days to gain the vote of confidence in his government and his program in the parliament.
The ruling coalition toppled on June 21 its own cabinet amid a tense relationship between the leadership of major ruling PSD and the prime minister who refused to resign even after his party withdrew political support for him and expelled him from the party.
The PSD leadership claimed they removed Grindeanu over his failure to pass most of the party's legislative program, which includes measures like tax cuts, salary increases for public servants and a sovereign-wealth fund of 11.2 billion U.S. dollars to promote infrastructure investment.
Grindeanu's cabinet entered into office in January after the Social Democrats won more than 45 percent of the votes in the parliamentary elections in December 2016.
