Romanian presidential elections postponed until year’s end

4 months ago 28

Romania’s governing coalition concluded discussions on the electoral calendar for the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections on Thursday, according to a press release from the Social Democrats and Liberals.

The first round of the presidential election will be held on 24 November, with the second round scheduled for 8 December. The parliamentary elections will be held in between, coinciding with Romania’s National Day on 1 December.

This marks a return to the original electoral calendar after the ruling coalition decided in the spring to move the presidential elections to September.

The Chamber of Deputies, acting as the decision-making body, passed a bill on 5 March to bring forward the election date to September. A few days later, on 12 March, President Klaus Iohannis announced his intention to run for NATO chair. The press and analysts linked the advancement of the election date to the president’s announcement.

Since then, Klaus Iohannis has withdrawn his candidacy for the NATO chairmanship and will complete his presidential term, which ends on 22 December.

In the spring, the Social Democrats and Liberals planned a joint presidential candidacy and even discussed joint parliamentary lists, similar to their strategy in the EU elections on 9 June. Despite their efforts, the alliance failed to secure more than 50% of the vote, prompting further negotiations between the PSD and PNL on the election dates, which eventually led to a compromise.

The opposition parties criticised the latest change to the electoral calendar. Ludovic Orban, leader of Forța Dreptei, claimed that the decision by the PSD and PNL was “a new attempt to seriously jeopardise the election results”, arguing that the revised calendar favoured parties with candidates in the second round of the presidential election.

The far-right AUR party claimed that the election date had been changed “out of fear” that its leader, George Simion, would make it to the second round.

So far, George Simion of AUR, MEP Diana Șoșoacă, leader of an extremist pro-Russian party, and Elena Lasconi, the new leader of USR (Renew), have announced their candidacies for the presidency.

Following Thursday’s announcement, Liberal leader Nicolae Ciucă said that both the PNL and the PSD would have their own presidential candidates.

A poll published by Inscop on Thursday showed current NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoană, who has not yet announced his candidacy, as the frontrunner with 26.7%. He is followed by PSD President and Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu at 17.8% and USR leader Elena Lasconi at 14.3%.

(Catalina Mihai | Euractiv.ro)