Romania’s majority leader says President is part of a campaign of “lies and misinformation”

Liviu Dragnea, the leader of Romania’s ruling party – PSD, says that a campaign of “lies and misinformation” is being carried out in Romania and suggested that President Klaus Iohannis may be part of it. Dragnea held a press conference on Thursday afternoon, together with Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu, making the first public statements after the PSD-backed Government approved an emergency ordinance to change the Criminal Code on Tuesday evening, triggering massive street protests in Romania. The PSD leader didn’t focus on the ordinance but started by commenting on the protests on Wednesday evening and especially the violent incidents at the end of the protests in Bucharest, when a group of hooligans attacked the gendarmes guarding the Government’s headquarters. Dragnea suggested that the people who get out to protest are misinformed and manipulated. “I too, if I had stood only in front of the TV in the last few days, without reading the Constitutional Court’s motivation, without looking over what the Government approved, would have went to the street outraged,” he said. “Such a machinery of misinformation I have only seen at the Revolution and after the Revolution. And there have been some situations in which this professional misinformation system has been used in Romania,” he added. He also said that any attempt to undermine the Government’s activity is an attempt to destabilize the legal order in Romania, pointing out that PSD won the elections fairly and has the legitimacy to exercise the Executive and Legislative powers, granted by the citizens. The PSD leader also said that he respected the protesters’ right to demonstrate, but without violence. He referred to the violent incidents at the end of the protest in Bucharest on Wednesday, when a group of hooligans attacked the gendarmes. He accused President Klaus Iohannis of being “the moral author” of those acts of violence. “I don’t think that the situation last night in Victoriei Square is what (the protesters) wanted. My request is that these people of good faith distance themselves from these groups that wanted to confiscate this protest. I don’t know whose sick mind generated the plan that led to the violent events,” Dragnea said. He also congratulated the interior minister and the Gendarmerie for the way they handled the situation. “I understand that they have been scolded by President Iohannis, who is in our opinion the moral author of last night’s acts of violence,” he added. Romania’s president asks Interior Ministry for clarifications on outcome of last night’s protests