The Fourth Ponta Cabinet, unlike the
previous cabinet, contained only politically appointed ministers. The post of deputy prime minister was abolished. In addition, eight ministerial portfolios were consolidated into four: • the Ministry of Scientific Research was merged into the Ministry of Education; • the Ministry of SMEs was merged into the Ministry of Economy; • the Ministry of Water and Forests was merged into the Ministry of Environment; and • the Ministry for the Budget was merged into the Ministry of Finance. The reshuffling of the
Third Ponta Cabinet came after ministers from the Hungarian-minority party,
Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR), left the coalition and resigned from their respective ministries. Prime Minister Ponta decided to change the cabinet's image, which had been negatively affected by his loss in the November 2014
presidential elections and by a scandal involving voting procedures in the diaspora. During the ceremony of taking the oath, outgoing president,
Traian Băsescu, criticized two of the members of the new cabinet, Liviu Pop and Sorin Cîmpeanu, accusing them of contributing to the destruction of educational institutions, calling Ponta a liar and alluding to the plagiarism scandal that resulted in the prime minister surrendering his doctorate. The Opposition, headed by the
National Liberal Party (PNL), announced a possible
motion of censure after 1 February 2015, with President
Klaus Iohannis supporting the effort to bring down the Ponta government. Iohannis also expressed support for a PNL-led government. A no-confidence motion failed in September 2015, on a 207–276 vote. On 4 November 2015,
Victor Ponta and his Cabinet resigned amid
mass protests against generalised corruption linked to the
Colectiv nightclub fire, being succeeded by the
Cioloș Cabinet, made up entirely by politically independent members. == Structure ==