Cohabitation as a Problem of the Romanian Semi-presidentialism
Cohabitation as a Problem of the Romanian Semi-presidentialism

Summary/Abstract: The paper aims to present by comparison the role of the two Romanian Presidents, Traian Băsescu and Klaus Iohannis, in the four spells of cohabitation occurred in Romania since 1990, both in situations of parliamentary majorities controlled by the Prime Ministers (divided majority) and of parliamentary minority represented by the Prime Minister (divided minority). As such, the paper focuses on the modalities in which the Presidents refused to cohabit and attended to prevent the cohabitation with Prime Ministers and governments coming from different political parties, after an analysis of the cohabitation category in semi-presidentialism. It mainly focuses on the types of strong intra-executive conflicts so generated and manifested as struggles over the control of the executive branch through obstructive or antagonistic behaviours. The assumption of this approach is that these behaviors of refusing cohabitation or of high level intra-executive conflicting are illustrative for different degrees of presidentialization of Romanian politics in all its three faces, namely of increasing leadership power resources and autonomy providing “a larger sphere of action” and assuring the protection “from outside interference”.

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