President Basescu survived [JURIST report] the national referendum last week when the vote, despite yielding 88 percent majority in favor of Basescu's resignation, was invalidated for failing to achieve the required threshold of 50 percent voter turnout. Prime Minister Victor Ponta [BBC profile], a member of the Social Liberal Union (USL) party that gained the majority seat in the parliament, led the referendum accusing the president. USL had voted [JURIST report] in early July to impeach the president in a 256-114 vote, at the same time passing an elimination of the referendum law's 50 percent turnout provision. The Supreme Court, however, reinstated [JURIST report] the requirement holding that in case of a lower than 50 percent turnout the referendum would be invalid.