23 Facts About Ludovic Orban

Ludovic Orban was president of the National Liberal Party between 2017 and 2021, which expelled him shortly after he lost a bid for another term as its leader.

Ludovic Orban was minister of transport from April 2007 to December 2008 in the second Tariceanu cabinet.

Ludovic Orban resumed his parliamentary seat within the Chamber of Deputies after the 2020 Romanian legislative election; shortly thereafter, he was elected president of the Chamber of Deputies of Romania.

Ludovic Orban was born in the Transylvanian city of Brasov to an ethnic Hungarian father and an ethnic Romanian mother.

Ludovic Orban was baptized and confirmed into his father's Unitarian Church of Transylvania, and speaks Hungarian at a basic level.

Between 1948 and 1956, under the early communist regime, the elder Ludovic Orban was an agent of the Securitate secret police.

Ludovic Orban completed secondary studies at the city's Andrei Saguna High School in 1982.

Ludovic Orban then studied industrial machinery design technology at the University of Brasov, graduating in 1988.

Ludovic Orban worked as an engineer at a Brasov factory from 1990 to 1991.

Ludovic Orban has been active in a foundation called "Children, the light of the world" and done consulting work.

Ludovic Orban was a Sector 3 local councillor from 1992 to 1996.

Ludovic Orban was elected a Sector 1 local councillor that year, but resigned.

Ludovic Orban headed the Bucharest chapter of the PNL from November 2002 and, from July 2004 to April 2007, was deputy mayor of Bucharest.

Ludovic Orban left this office following a cabinet reshuffle, becoming transport minister until his party's loss at the 2008 election, where he himself won a seat in a Bucharest constituency.

In March 2009, concurrent with his ally Crin Antonescu's ascent to the PNL presidency and the sidelining of the Tariceanu faction, Ludovic Orban became the party's vice president.

Ludovic Orban was a candidate in the June 2016 race for mayor of Bucharest, but two months before the election, withdrew from the race as well as from his PNL and Chamber posts after being placed under investigation by the National Anticorruption Directorate.

Ludovic Orban was not a candidate in the 2016 parliamentary election.

Ludovic Orban's cabinet received parliamentary approval the following month, with 240 lawmakers voting in favor, seven more than required.

Ludovic Orban's government was ousted via a no-confidence motion in February 2020, with 261 lawmakers voting in favor.

In 2021, Ludovic Orban ran for a new term as PNL president.

Ludovic Orban is a somewhat controversial figure, known for his provocative declarations.

Ludovic Orban criticised the Emil Boc government, which during 2009 was composed of the Basescu-associated Democratic Liberal Party and the Social Democrats, referring to the latter party's then-leader, Mircea Geoana, as Basescu's "steward"; and attacking cabinet policies on education, tourism promotion, and the 2008 financial crisis.

Ludovic Orban is unrelated to Viktor Orban, and has said that their sharing a name is often a source of shame for him.