Romania's centrist Prime Minister-designate Ludovic Orban easily won a parliamentary vote of confidence on Saturday, as expected, with all political groupings seeking to end a political stalemate and focus on the coronavirus crisis.

President Klaus Iohannis asked the quarantined interim premier to form a government on Friday. Cabinet ministers quarantined themselves, after coming into contact with a coronavirus-infected lawmaker. 

The minority one-party cabinet proposed by Orban was voted in favor by a number of 286 deputies and senators – much more than the required minimum of 233 votes in the 465-seat bicameral parliament. There were 23 votes against the new cabinet. 

Lawmakers toppled Orban's minority Liberal government at the beginning of February, but he has continued running the country on an interim basis with limited powers. 

Orban said in his speech to the parliament, delivered for the investiture vote of his future cabinet, that he will prioritize the necessary budget resources to purchase, under a simplified emergency procedure, the sanitary materials and necessary medical equipment. 

"The National Liberal Party assumed this difficult task of governing in hard times for the country and, with a new government, with full powers, I am convinced that it will be able to manage, in the best possible way, the situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic," he said. 

He stressed that "in these difficult times for the country," it is time for political battles to cease and everyone's responsibility should come first before personal or party interests. 

(With input from wires)