PSD gains senator Ioan Rusu as PSD and AUR split top Chamber of Deputies posts

Senator joins PSD group

Senator Ioan Rusu told the Senate plenary on Monday, 9 November 2026, that he was affiliating with the parliamentary group of the Partidul Social Democrat (PSD). He was elected senator in December 2024 in Circumscription 12 Călăraşi on the S.O.S. România list. He then sat in the PACE - Întâi România group, which was dissolved in October 2026 after several senators left and it no longer had the minimum of seven members. Rusu is the sixth senator from the POT and S.O.S. România lists to join PSD, following five others who announced the move in the Senate plenary on 2 September.

“I am informing you that, as of today (Monday), I am joining the PSD parliamentary group.”

Chamber leadership posts

The Chamber of Deputies approved, through a secret ballot with voting slips, the appointment of Ioana Bran-Voinea as secretary general of the institution. Bran-Voinea, 40, had been deputy secretary general and was proposed for the new post by the PSD parliamentary group. She is a former PSD deputy for Satu Mare and was minister of youth and sport in the government led by Viorica Dăncilă from 29 January to 20 November 2018. She had been deputy secretary general since May 2022 and had performed the duties of secretary general on an interim basis since October 2024. The same day, deputies confirmed Oana-Elena Pintilei as deputy secretary general, a post whose candidacy was supported by the AUR parliamentary group.

Opposition criticism

USR deputy Cătălin Drulă said PSD and AUR had also taken over the administrative leadership of the Chamber, and that USR voted against both appointments. In a USR statement, the party argued that the vote confirms the cooperation between PSD and AUR and reinforces the view that AUR is not an opposition party. Drulă described Bran-Voinea as not independent, calling her a former minister and PSD deputy, and said the posts should have gone to independent professionals.

“In practice, the administrative leadership of the Chamber of Deputies has been handed over to PSD and AUR.”

USR recalled that at the start of the current parliamentary session, two representatives from USR and PNL were removed from the Permanent Bureau and replaced by representatives of AUR and S.O.S. România, with the votes of PSD. According to the USR statement, PSD, AUR and S.O.S. România now hold nine of the 13 positions on the Permanent Bureau, which the party says plays a vital role in changing the plenary agenda so that inconvenient bills can be rejected or blocked.