Romania’s ruling left-wing party, the Social Democratic Party, withdrew from talks to form a coalition government, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said today, thus escalating the political crisis triggered by the cancellation of the presidential elections earlier this month.

The Social Democrats secured the most seats in the December 1 parliamentary elections, in which three ultranationalist and far-right parties, some with openly pro-Russian positions, took more than a third of the seats.

The Social Democrats had been in talks to form a broader alliance government with three other pro-European parties in an effort to keep the far-right at bay, but these four parties disagreed on the necessary measures to reduce the country’s largest budget deficit in the EU.

“Unfortunately, you can’t build something lasting with partners who are unable to overcome their own egos and ideological clichés,” Ciolacu wrote on his Facebook page. “The Social Democratic Party is withdrawing from the talks… but we will not avoid accountability. We will vote for a center-right government.”

The center-right Liberals, the centrist Save Romania Union, the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians, and representatives of ethnic minorities do not have enough seats to hold a parliamentary majority.