Radio România Internațional

Tag: parliamentary elections Romania

  • The left wins Romania’s parliamentary elections

    The left wins Romania’s parliamentary elections


    Only 40% of Romanias over 18 million voters went to the polls on Sunday to choose their parliamentarians and half of them voted for left-of-centre Social Democratic Party (PSD). The Social Democrats got around 45 percent of the votes for both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, prompting the party leader Liviu Dragnea to feel entitled to claim the prime minister seat for his party. Romanians have expressed their choice clearly and their wish must be respected by the fundamental institutions of the state, said Dragnea:



    “I want this stable democracy to be maintained in Romania without useless conflicts which means that the states fundamental institutions must understand and respect Romanians vote.”



    The Social Democrats have outperformed the right-of-centre National Liberal Party (PNL), whose decline in the voters preferences, which started at the local elections this summer, has been confirmed in Sundays parliamentary elections.



    With only 20 percent of the votes, the Liberals still hoped, on Sunday evening, in a miracle that would keep the technocratic prime minister Dacian Ciolos in place. This is what the Liberal leader Alina Gorghiu:



    “Our objective to form a parliamentary majority and have Dacian Ciolos as prime minister is still in the cards. It depends a great deal on the final result, on the results of the other smaller parties, on whether they make it to Parliament or not.”



    The smaller parties that Alina Gorghiu was referring to, namely the Save Romania Union (USR) and the Peoples Movement Party (PMP), have exceeded the 5-percent electoral threshold and will be part of the new parliament, but they cant change the maths. After their success in the local elections this summer, the Save Bucharest Union became the Save Romania Union (USR). Having won over 9 percent in Sundays elections, USR promises to become the competent and untainted alternative to the mainstream parties. The USR leader, Nicusor Dan, has said:



    “A party made up of people who have not been involved in politics before makes it to Parliament for the first time after the revolution.”



    Built around a number of Liberal dissidents led by former prime minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) will also be part of the new parliament and with their around 6 percent of the votes will support the Social Democrats to form the majority in parliament, in keeping with an agreement forged ahead of the elections.



    Another party that made it to parliament is the People Movements Party (PMP) headed by the former president Traian Basescu, which won 5 percent of the votes.



    A constant presence in Parliament, the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) got over 6 percent of the votes. Party leader Kelemen Hunor has made not secret out of his partys wish to contribute to parliaments decisions:



    “I hope that our parliamentary group will have a say in all decisions taken in parliament.”



    No independent candidate has made it to parliament. Technically, Sundays elections reintroduced, after two rounds of uninominal voting, the party-list system. The postal voting, a total novelty in the history of elections in Romania, has been introduced for Romanians living abroad. In political terms, PSD and their ally, ALDE, are the clear winners.



    The elections result puts President Klaus Iohannis in an uncomfortable position, with pundits wondering if he will give up the integrity principle he has been holding on to under pressure from the Social Democrats pressure. Ahead of the elections, Iohannis warned that he would not nominate a prime minister who had problems with the law, as Liviu Dragnea, whose name had been mentioned as prospective prime minister, received a suspended prison sentence for his involvement in the referendum for the impeachment of former president Traian Basescu.




  • Electronic Vote Count Monitoring

    Electronic Vote Count Monitoring

    Free, democratic, transparent and correct elections are still a goal that many feel is yet to be reached in post-communist Romania. Since the first free elections, in 1990, to this day, the scope of the protests in this respect have forced authorities to seek efficient solutions to make the election process more transparent and to prevent fraud.



    In this year’s local elections, for instance, a software was introduced to prevent voting fraud. Installed on each computer in polling stations, the software includes a data reader, similar to the card readers in retail stores, which registers data from the voters’ ID. The system indicates multiple voting attempts and shows if a person is in a different constituency than the one where they have the right to vote.



    To further strengthen the transparency of the electoral process, the Interior Ministry made public a draft government order on Monday, to the effect that the final part of the parliamentary elections due this winter will be videotaped. This is for the first time that the ballot counting is filmed, and it is precisely in order to address the lingering suspicions regarding this part of the voting process. The computer operator in the Election Bureau of each polling station will be in charge with the audio and video recording of the activity starting with the closing of the station and until the Bureau members leave the premises.



    The recording will be made from a fixed position, at a medium distance, on a single large frame. The operator cannot make copies or allow the access of third parties to the recordings, which will be handed to the Special Telecommunications Service for storage for a maximum 3-month period. The recordings are to be destroyed after that period.



    The Interior Ministry is to procure the self-adhesive labels and clear plastic bags, with serial numbers and seal systems, and to produce the “VOTED” stamps required in the procedure. On Tuesday, Interior Minister Dragos Tudorache told prefects that the goal of the authorities is to organise this year the least contested elections to date. He also requested strict compliance with the deadlines in the election calendar.



    The elections for the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies will be held on December 11. Last week, the Central Electoral Bureau accepted the lists of candidates submitted by some of the 20 ethnic minorities in Romania, including the Ukrainian Union, the German Democratic Forum, the Roma Party, the Croatian Union, the Greek Union, the Federation of Jewish Communities. Last week was also the deadline for parties and independent candidates to submit participation lists for the December elections in constituencies outside the country, representing the Romanian Diaspora. (traslation by AM Popescu)