Designated Prime Minister Siegfried Mureșan announced Tuesday that he will personally transport the government program and cabinet list into Parliament on a wooden handcart, then read the entire document aloud from the tribune until every senator and deputy votes in favor, a process he estimates will take eleven consecutive days.
«We are not submitting paper, we are submitting a physical object that can be touched, weighed and carried through the streets,» Mureșan told reporters outside the Palace of the Parliament, standing beside a cart he described as «reinforced for the weight of responsibility.» The cart, built by a workshop in Botoșani, features brass handles and a small bell that rings each time a minister's name is read aloud.
Under the new procedure, Mureșan will begin reading at 8 a.m. each day and continue until midnight, pausing only for water and for the arrival of any MP who wishes to challenge a paragraph. Challengers must stand on a designated red square in the chamber floor and recite the paragraph from memory before speaking. Those who fail are required to push the cart one full lap around the building.
Sorin Grindeanu, who has demanded daily that Mureșan withdraw his mandate, was assigned by lottery to push the cart during the reading of the transport chapter. «He asked every day for my mandate, so now he gets a handle,» Mureșan said. «The cart does not stop for anyone.»
Parliamentary ushers have been issued new uniforms with pockets sized for rolled-up copies of the program, and the chamber's ventilation system has been recalibrated to handle the heat generated by eleven days of continuous oratory. A nearby café has begun selling «program bread» shaped like a rolled scroll.
By Wednesday evening, Mureșan had reached page nine and reported that the cart had developed a slight squeak, which he described as «the sound of democracy under load.»