Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis has named leftist Sorin Grindeanu as the country’s new prime minister.
The Friday announcement to appoint the 43-year-old former communications minister from the ruling leftist Social Democrat Party (PSD) as the new prime minister came after the leftists won parliamentary elections in December.
Grindeanu now has 10 days to appoint cabinet members and form a government. The parliament will have to conduct a confidence vote on cabinet nominees.
Legislative elections for 466 parliamentary seats were held in Romania on December 11. 2016. The PSD won the majority of the seats in parliament by garnering 46 percent of the votes.
The president’s National Liberal Party (PNL)’s won over 20 percent of the seats.
Romania, with over 21 million people, is one of the poorest countries in the European Union (EU) and is suffering from alleged widespread corruption among high-ranking officials.
Iohannis, who campaigned on an anti-corruption platform, defeated former prime minister Victor Ponta in a presidential election run-off in November 2014.
Dacian Ciolos, an independent, was appointed Romania’s prime minister in November 2015 following the resignation of Ponta after mass anti-government protests sparked by a nightclub fire in Bucharest, which left dozens of people dead.