Romania votes in new government to end political crisis

By STEPHEN McGRATH
Associated Press

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romanian lawmakers on Thursday voted in favor of a new coalition government led by a Liberal former army general, which could usher in an end to a months-long political crisis in the Eastern European nation. The vote in parliament, which passed overwhelmingly, caps a protracted political crisis that prompted an unlikely partnership between the center-right National Liberal Party and the leftist Social Democrat Party — former political rivals and Romania’s two biggest parties. Newly-appointed Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca, a former defense minister, will lead the new three-party coalition which is comprised of the PNL, PSD, and Romania’s small ethnic Hungarian party UDMR.