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EU: Romania Holds Presidential Vote Recount Ahead Of Key Parliamentary Election

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This weekend will see another episode in Romania's electoral saga, which started with the first round of the presidential election last week and will conclude with the presidential run-off on December 8. This time around, Romanians will elect all 330 of the Chamber of Deputies and 156 members of the Senate, with polling stations across the country set to open at 7am local time on Sunday.

  • The fist round of the presidential election held last weekend sent shockwaves across the Romanian political system, as radical far-right candidate Calin Georgescu emerged as the front-runner. Georgescu emerged from the fringes of Romanian politics over a very short period, did not run a proper campaign (focusing his activities on TikTok) and yet was able to beat a number of nationally recognisable figures. Romania's top court ordered a recount of votes amid suspicions of foreign interference.
  • The Constitutional Court set a very tight deadline for the unprecedented recount of first-round votes, giving officials just a day to complete the procedure. The top court will reconvene at 12:00GMT/14:00EET to comment on further steps and decide on whether to accept the results. The recount is unlikely to result in a change of the winner, but could affect the second place, as the runner-up made it into the run-off thanks to a razor-thin margin of just a couple of thousands of votes. However, Prime Minister Ciolacu, who finished the race in third place, declared that he will not contest the run-off regardless of the verdict.
  • In the meantime, the focus turns to the arguably more consequential parliamentary election. Romania uses party-list proportional representation to elect its MPs from 43 multi-member constituencies. The system is applied to both houses of parliament, with parties subject to a 5% electoral threshold (or 20% in four constituencies). The electoral threshold is higher for alliances and rises to 8%, 9% and 10% for coalitions of two, three or more parties, respectively.
  • The ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD) has outperformed in opinion polls, with its support rate hovering around 30%. Earlier this week, a new AtlasIntel poll (possibly the last one before the election) for the first time showed the far-right AUR party in the pole position, with a support rate of 22.4%. Meanwhile, the poll suggested that the previously unknown POT party supporting Georgescu was on the verge of making it into parliament.
  • Although it still seems unlikely that the far-right, anti-establishment parties could manage to win enough seats to form government, their better-than-expected result could force other parties to form a wider, more diverse coalition, which would naturally be less cohesive and less table, complicating efforts to address existing fiscal challenges.
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This weekend will see another episode in Romania's electoral saga, which started with the first round of the presidential election last week and will conclude with the presidential run-off on December 8. This time around, Romanians will elect all 330 of the Chamber of Deputies and 156 members of the Senate, with polling stations across the country set to open at 7am local time on Sunday.

  • The fist round of the presidential election held last weekend sent shockwaves across the Romanian political system, as radical far-right candidate Calin Georgescu emerged as the front-runner. Georgescu emerged from the fringes of Romanian politics over a very short period, did not run a proper campaign (focusing his activities on TikTok) and yet was able to beat a number of nationally recognisable figures. Romania's top court ordered a recount of votes amid suspicions of foreign interference.
  • The Constitutional Court set a very tight deadline for the unprecedented recount of first-round votes, giving officials just a day to complete the procedure. The top court will reconvene at 12:00GMT/14:00EET to comment on further steps and decide on whether to accept the results. The recount is unlikely to result in a change of the winner, but could affect the second place, as the runner-up made it into the run-off thanks to a razor-thin margin of just a couple of thousands of votes. However, Prime Minister Ciolacu, who finished the race in third place, declared that he will not contest the run-off regardless of the verdict.
  • In the meantime, the focus turns to the arguably more consequential parliamentary election. Romania uses party-list proportional representation to elect its MPs from 43 multi-member constituencies. The system is applied to both houses of parliament, with parties subject to a 5% electoral threshold (or 20% in four constituencies). The electoral threshold is higher for alliances and rises to 8%, 9% and 10% for coalitions of two, three or more parties, respectively.
  • The ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD) has outperformed in opinion polls, with its support rate hovering around 30%. Earlier this week, a new AtlasIntel poll (possibly the last one before the election) for the first time showed the far-right AUR party in the pole position, with a support rate of 22.4%. Meanwhile, the poll suggested that the previously unknown POT party supporting Georgescu was on the verge of making it into parliament.
  • Although it still seems unlikely that the far-right, anti-establishment parties could manage to win enough seats to form government, their better-than-expected result could force other parties to form a wider, more diverse coalition, which would naturally be less cohesive and less table, complicating efforts to address existing fiscal challenges.