DOCSLIB.ORG

Clean Romania! the Monitoring of Candidates' Integrity for The

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Clean Romania! the Monitoring of Candidates' Integrity for The Clean Romania! The Monitoring of Candidates’ Integrity for the European Elections 2019 Romanian Academic Society (Secretariat) -www.romaniacurata.ro Bucharest, May 20, 2019 How do Romanian candidates for European Parliament elections fair on integrity? This is a legitimate question in a country where corruption has been the sole campaign topic and even a referendum is organized simultaneously with elections for EP asking the voters to declare themselves against amnesty for corrupt acts and government ordinances on criminal policy. The referendum has been proposed and promoted by President Klaus Iohannis, ex head of National Liberal Party (PNL), whose electoral rally he also attended in the current campaign. The voting is organized by the government, who is in bitter opposition to Mr. Iohannis and is shared between Social Democrats (PSD) and the liberal splinter ALDE. A new anti-system party, 2020 USR+ (Alliance 2020 Save Romania Plus) has also called for a referendum to ban from running in elections candidates with prior criminal convictions and rally for a renewed political class with top integrity credentials. And now the fact checking. Since 2004, the Coalition for a Clean Parliament (CPC), part of the Alliance for a Clean Romania Alliance (www.romaniacurata.ro), has monitored all elections on the integrity of candidates. The criteria were established with political parties and occasionally integrity contracts were signed. Historical monitoring can be seen here http://www.romaniacurata.ro/liste-negre/ and was covered by the national and international media. For the 2019 elections a total of 86 integrity candidates were monitored as follows: ➢ 11 (the first placed on lists) from parties credited with chances to exceed the electoral threshold according to opinion polls (PSD, Alliance 2020 USR PLUS, PNL, ALDE, PMP (party of former President Traian Basescu), Pro Romania and UDMR (Hungarian Alliance)) - a total of 77 candidates. Although their chances are different, we have decided that for the comparison of party lists this regime is preferable, so that the number of candidates with integrity problems in the first 11 is the criterion of comparison. The first candidate on the list of parties that according to surveys will not pass the electoral threshold (PRU, PSDI, PRODEMO, BUN, PSR and UNPR) - a total of 6 candidates. Independent candidates - 3 candidates in total. The criteria used were those traditionally established and verified with political parties and opinion polls since 2004, when the first Coalition for a Clean Parliament was held, namely: 1. Undue profit from connection with a public authority, for example as a recipient of public contracts (when those outweigh the profit from private business-business transactions in the firm's economy) or inconsistent wealth to the transparent income sources; 2. Academic fraud and cheating. 3. Indictment for corruption or other criminal offenses. 4. Nepotism (promotion of relatives using public influence and any personal profit resulting violation of public-private separation in the exercise of public office). 5. Political migration (belonging to multiple parties, starting from the third upwards to get or keep office). 6. Autonomy from secret services. This criterion is transformed from the older collaboration with the former Ceausescu’s Securitate. In a democracy, civilians control secret services, not vice versa, and the sponsorship of some politicians by the secret services is as abnormal as their blackmail by those services. 7. Discriminatory attitudes towards minorities. This criterion has already been introduced in previous elections, and it has been given even greater weight here as it is about European elections. Candidates with stringent problems have been classified as having integrity issues. Mentions have also been made to some of the candidates who do not correspond fully to one criterion only. Assessments are based on the information available at this time in the public space and can be updated it new information reaches us. The CNSAS, Romania’s official secret service archive screening authority failed to send timely verification of the candidates. The National Integrity Agency ANI, which should by law check undue profit has also not produced a screening. 15 years after the first Coalition for a Clean Parliament and our activism in creating ANI and defending CNSAS from political attacks we still can not rely these state bodies to objectively and timely take on this role of monitoring integrity from civil society. Below the conclusions of the general analysis. PSD- A minimum of 6 candidates in the top 11 have integrity issues PNL - A minimum of 9 candidates from the top 11 have integrity issues. ALDE - A minimum of 6 candidates from the top 11 have integrity issues 2020 USR-PLUS - A minimum of 6 candidates in the top 11 have integrity issues PMP A minimum of 6 out of 11 candidates have integrity issues. Pro-Romania (Victor Ponta) A minimum of 4 out of 11 candidates have integrity issues. UDMR - Minimum 1 candidate from the UDMR list may raise integrity issues. There were no problems of integrity with the three independents, and the presumed parties below the threshold of three have integrity issues. Some of the black-listed candidates are top of their lists. For instance, Rovana Plumb (SDP, the Roșia Montană affair), Rares Bogdan (PNL, fuzzy border between independent and sponsored talk-shows), Dacian Cioloș (2020, insufficient autonomy from secret services, Norica Nicolai (ALDE, past problems as a prosecutor), Traian Băsescu (PMP, charged by CNSAS as having been a Securitate informant, nepotism, undue profit from office), pro- Romania (Victor Ponta- plagiarist, lost his PhD). Voters are given a difficult choice if any good choice at all. If we consider candidates in these elections, the division of Romanian parties into "criminal" and "anti-criminal", or pro and anti-justice is not clearly justified by the facts. The most vociferous parties in supporting the presidential referendum against corruption would have done better to set an example through the integrity of their lists. They do not do better than their opponents. PNL does even worse. As for the general offer of the Romanian political class in these European Parliament elections, the situation is this: POLITICAL MIGRATION 10% NEPOTISM - 30% PREFERENTIAL STATE CONTRACTS - 27% OBSCURE FORTUNE - 26% enjoy wealth from non-transparent sources. AUTONOMY FROM SECRET SERVICES - 35% had relations with intelligence services in one form or another (a huge number of future MEPs have prepared for the European Parliament by studying at the Romanian security “academies”); DISCRIMINATORY ATTITUDES 30% have entries in this box. CRIMINAL LIABILITY - 11% have or have had at some point problems with the law incompletely clarified. Adding to the above we find 41 percent with other integrity claims, such as academic fraud, fines for dishonest behavior, sanctioned incompatibilities, etc. These are the only CPC lists edited and verified by our institution, which had been published without interruption since 2004. Fake ‘black lists’ without criteria and refereeing copying the label are produced and circulated by parties or groups closed to parties and published in partisan media. We expect professional media to submit such fake monitoring to careful scrutiny. This list is an act of public information. Clean Romania does not claim that any of the candidates with integrity issues is "corrupt" or "criminal", but it is its civic duty to contribute to the informed vote of the citizens. Any new relevant information will be taken into consideration. Full monitoring here http://www.romaniacurata.ro/liste-negre-romania-curata-europarlamentare- 2019/ (Chair- Alina Mungiu-Pippidi; Team Director – Cristian Ghingheș. Queries at [email protected] or 0212111477). .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Revista Română Studii Electorale
    Autoritatea Electorală Permanentă REVISTA ROMÂNĂ de STUDII ELECTORALE Vol. VII, nr. 1 – 2, 2019 Autoritatea Electorală Permanentă REVISTA ROMÂNĂ de STUDII ELECTORALE Vol. VII, nr. 1 – 2, 2019 Revista Română de Studii Electorale Publicaţie bianuală editată de Autoritatea Electorală Permanentă (continuă revista Expert Electoral) ISSN (print): 2601-8454 ISSN (L): 2601-8454 Consiliul știinţific: Rafael López-Pintor Paul DeGregorio – Universitatea Autonomă din Madrid Pierre Garrone – Asociaţia Mondială a Organismelor Electorale Robert Krimmer – Comisia de la Veneţia Toby James – Ragnar Nurkse School of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology Ştefan Deaconu – School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies, University of East Anglia Sergiu Mişcoiu – Universitatea din Bucureşti Daniel Barbu – Facultatea de Studii Europene, Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai Constantin-Florin Mituleţu-Buică – Universitatea din București Marian Muhuleţ – Autoritatea Electorală Permanentă Zsombor Vajda – Autoritatea Electorală Permanentă – Autoritatea Electorală Permanentă Consiliul redacţional: Alexandru Radu Daniel Duţă Andrada-Maria Mateescu Bogdan Fartușnic Octavian Mircea Chesaru Camelia Runceanu Realizat la Autoritatea Electorală Permanentă Str. Stavropoleos nr. 6, sector 3, Bucureşti [email protected] www.roaep.ro CUPRINS Alexandru RADU, Daniel BUTI – Electoral Design in Central and Eastern Europe ..................... 5 Séminaire international sur la participation électorale et l’éducation à la démocratie et la 7e Assemblée
    [Show full text]
  • Monitoring Facebook. Presidential Elections – Romania, November 2019
    Monitoring Facebook. Presidential Elections – Romania, November 2019 A report drafted by GlobalFocus Center, Bucharest, in cooperation with MEMO98, Bratislava. Supported by Democracy Reporting International, Berlin. Monitoring Facebook. Presidential Elections – Romania, November 2019 Monitoring Facebook. Presidential Elections – Romania, November 2019 February, 2019 Bucharest, Romania This project was supported by Civitates Monitoring Facebook. Presidential Elections – Romania, November 2019 GlobalFocus Center is an independent international studies’ think tank that produces in-depth research and high-quality analysis on foreign policy, security, European aairs, good governance, and development. Our purpose is to advance expertise by functioning as a platform for cooperation and dialogue among individual experts, NGOs, think-tanks, and public institutions from Romania and foreign partners. We have built, and tested over 10 dierent countries a unique research methodology, proactively approaching the issue of malign interference by analysing societies' structural, weaponisable vulnerabilities. We are building a multi-stakeholder Stratcom platform, for identifying an optimal way of initiating and conducting unied responses to hybrid threats. Our activities are focused on fostering regional security and contributing to the reection process of EU reforms. During November 1-24, 2019, GlobalFocus Center, in cooperation with MEMO98 and Democracy Reporting International (DRI), monitored Facebook during the 10 and 24 November presidential election polls in Romania. AUTHORS GlobalFocus Center: Ana Maria Luca, Run Zamr (editor) ANALYSTS: Alexandra Mihaela Ispas, Ana Maria Teaca, Vlad Iavita, Raluca Andreescu MEMO98: Rasťo Kužel Monitoring Facebook. Presidential Elections – Romania, November 2019 Contents I. INTRODUCTION 4 II. HIGHLIGHTS 5 III. CONTEXT 6 III.1 TRUST IN MEDIA AND SOCIAL MEDIA CONSUMPTION IN ROMANIA 6 III.2 PUBLIC ATTITUDES AND TRUST IN INSTITUTIONS 7 III.3 THE NOVEMBER 2019 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 7 IV.
    [Show full text]
  • EU Election Results
    EU Election results 28 May 2019 EU Elections Timeline WC July 8 30 September - Election of 10 October Committee Chairs 28 May and Vice-Chairs Parliamentary hearings of Commissioners designate First meeting of 1 Conference of 20-21 June Presidents (political Nov group laders) European Council 15-18 Jul New Commision decides nominee takes office European Council for Commission top European Parliament dinner to take stock jobs (Presidents of elects the European of EP elections Commission, Council Commission President and ECB) WC 1 July June Election of EP vote of consent on June European the new Commission Parliament + European Council Elected candidates President and formally appoints the negotiate to form VPs Commission political groups for the upcoming Parliament’s 9th term July - September November - December Appointment of MEPs 2-4 July Member States Exchange of views on to EP Committees & propose members multinational priorities, Inaugural plenary Delegatiolns of the Commission Commission Work session of the newly- Programme elected Parliament Appointment of political group coordinators (lead) on Committees The European Parliament’s 9th term will begin on 2 July, when Members of the European Parliament will meet for its first session in Strasbourg, France. MEPs will elect the President, the 14 Vice-Presidents and the five Quaestors of the House and decide on the number and 2 Jul composition of Parliament’s standing and sub-committees - thereby launching the new legislative term. 2 Seats distribution for the new European Parliament (EU28) - Left–right political spectrum Source: https://election-results.eu/ The scramble for a new majority coalition For the first time since 1979, Europe’s centre-right and centre-left political groups will be too small to form a majority in the European Parliament between them.
    [Show full text]
  • State of Populism in Europe
    2018 State of Populism in Europe The past few years have seen a surge in the public support of populist, Eurosceptical and radical parties throughout almost the entire European Union. In several countries, their popularity matches or even exceeds the level of public support of the centre-left. Even though the centre-left parties, think tanks and researchers are aware of this challenge, there is still more OF POPULISM IN EUROPE – 2018 STATE that could be done in this fi eld. There is occasional research on individual populist parties in some countries, but there is no regular overview – updated every year – how the popularity of populist parties changes in the EU Member States, where new parties appear and old ones disappear. That is the reason why FEPS and Policy Solutions have launched this series of yearbooks, entitled “State of Populism in Europe”. *** FEPS is the fi rst progressive political foundation established at the European level. Created in 2007 and co-fi nanced by the European Parliament, it aims at establishing an intellectual crossroad between social democracy and the European project. Policy Solutions is a progressive political research institute based in Budapest. Among the pre-eminent areas of its research are the investigation of how the quality of democracy evolves, the analysis of factors driving populism, and election research. Contributors : Tamás BOROS, Maria FREITAS, Gergely LAKI, Ernst STETTER STATE OF POPULISM Tamás BOROS IN EUROPE Maria FREITAS • This book is edited by FEPS with the fi nancial support of the European
    [Show full text]
  • Romania Political Briefing: Further Tensions on the Political Scene Oana Cristina Popovici
    ISSN: 2560-1601 Vol. 7, No. 1 (RO) May 2018 Romania Political briefing: Further tensions on the political scene Oana Cristina Popovici 1052 Budapest Petőfi Sándor utca 11. +36 1 5858 690 Kiadó: Kína-KKE Intézet Nonprofit Kft. [email protected] Szerkesztésért felelős személy: Chen Xin Kiadásért felelős személy: Huang Ping china-cee.eu Further tensions on the political scene The political turmoil seems to continue even after the installation of the third Government from the part of the actual coalition, which holds the majority in the Romanian Parliament. Moreover, the tensions between the President and the Government escalated in the last period. While protests related to the Government measures took place again in the month of May, the coalition parties announce a large political rally for the support of the actual Government. The lately changes of the political membership of some of the Members of the Parliament started to put some pressure on the Government, but the success of a censure motion against it is still reduced. At the end of April, the President demanded the resignation of Viorica Dăncilă from the post of Prime Minister, on the presumption that she cannot deal with such a position. The announcement was made after the Prime-Minister refused to meet the invitation received for participating to a meeting in which the President intended to mediate the tensioned conflict between the Government and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Bank of Romania (NBR). At that point, the two institutions accused each other for conducting or supporting vicious monetary policies.
    [Show full text]
  • Facebook in the 2019 Romanian EP Elections
    ORIGINAL ARTICLE European Elections, National Agenda: Facebook in the 2019 Romanian EP Elections Flavia Ţăran ORCID: 0000-0002-7107-5582 BABEȘ-BOLYAI UNIVERSITY, CLUJ-NAPOCA, ROMANIA Flavia Ţăran, Alexandra Catalina Ormenișan ORCID: 0000-0002-7454-2385 BABEȘ-BOLYAI UNIVERSITY, CLUJ-NAPOCA, ROMANIA https://doi.org/10.19195/1899-5101.13.1(25).5 ABSTRACT: Politicians and political campaigns are not inadvertent to the development of social media platforms as environments that allow access to a larger audience. Not relying solely on the traditional media as a mouthpiece for their messages and taking matters into their own hands off ers new segues for analyzing political communication. However, not all elections are of equal interest, both for the electorate and for the candidates, as second-order election theory suggests (Reif & Schmitt, 1980; Hix & Marsh, 2004). Th is paper investigates the area situated at the intersection of these two research directions. Th is quantitative study aims to analyze how Romanian political par- ties and candidates used Facebook in the electoral campaign for the European Parliament, in May 2019. Th e study follows the correlation between Facebook metrics, like frequency of posts and the popularity of the pages, and the political agendas refl ected in each party’s Facebook posts. Th e con- clusions are consistent with second-order elections theory, but raise questions about the dependable nature of Facebook metrics. KEYWORDS: European Parliament, elections, Romania, Facebook. INTRODUCTION Th e spread of the World Wide Web has indisputably left a mark on the way com- munication is carried out, challenging the established paradigms. Unlike trad- itional media, which enables a more passive consumption of information, the digital media, especially social network sites, impose a multidirectional fl ow, al- lowing users to interact with each other (Himelboim et al., 2012).
    [Show full text]
  • Elections 2019 in Moldova: New Challenges and New Opportunities for Cooperation Within Ukraine-Moldova-Romania Triangle
    ELECTIONS 2019 IN MOLDOVA: NEW CHALLENGES AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR COOPERATION WITHIN UKRAINE-MOLDOVA-ROMANIA TRIANGLE POLICY PAPER 2 2 Policy Paper INTRODUCTION AUTHORS TEAM General editing: Sergiy Gerasymchuk Angela Gramada, director, Experts for Security and Global Affairs Association (Romania) Armand Goșu, associate professor, University of Bucharest, Faculty of Political Science (Romania) Denis Cenușa, researcher, Institute for Political Science Justus-Liebig University (Giessen, Germany), Associat- ed expertiIn the think-tank “Expert-Grup”, contributor news agency IPN (Moldova) Hanna Shelest, head of International Security Studies department, Foreign Policy Council “Ukrainian Prism” Hennadiy Maksak, director, Foreign Policy Council “Ukrainian Prism”, Ukrainian National Platform coordinator of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum Ileana Racheru, researcher, Romanian Diplomatic Institute Nadia Bureiko, expert, Foreign Policy Council “Ukrainian Prism” Natalia Stercul, program director, Department of Eastern Studies: Ukraine and Russia, Foreign Policy Associa- tion of Moldova Sergiy Gerasymchuk, head of the South-Eastern Europe Studies department, Foreign Policy Council “Ukrainian Prism” Viviana Anghel, associate lecturer, National School of Political Science and Public Administration, faculty of Political Science (Romania) Vlad Lupan, Independent Expert; ex-Ambassador & Permanent Representative of the Republic of Moldova to the United Nations Elections 2019 in Moldova 3 INTRODUCTION CONTENTS MOLDOVA: THE TEST FOR THE DEMOCRATIC
    [Show full text]
  • MIAMI UNIVERSITY the Graduate School
    MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School Certificate for Approving the Dissertation We hereby approve the Dissertation of Angela Ștefan Trubceac Candidate for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy ______________________________________ Kate Rousmaniere, Director ______________________________________ Brittany Aronson, Reader ______________________________________ Thomas Poetter, Reader ______________________________________ Thomas Misco, Graduate School Representative ABSTRACT MOLDOVAN SECONDARY EDUCATION SOCIAL STUDIES TEACHERS’ CONCEPTUALIZATION OF MULTICULTURAL APPROACHES TO PEACE EDUCATION (MAPE) by Angela Șt. Trubceac A key social driver in The Republic of Moldova, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, has been the establishment of a state education system that emphasizes cultural pluralism and interculturalism. Educational research about the Republic of Moldova shows an increased motivation among contemporary secondary education social studies teachers to incorporate multicultural education and to enhance their professional skills in helping students to deal with violence, conflicts, and interethnic, linguistic, and cultural tensions. In the Republic of Moldova, secondary education social studies are required by the state education system to teach civic and citizenship education for the purpose of developing a harmonious society. However, there are no formal or required multicultural and peace education dimensions in Moldova’s system of education. In order for Moldovan youth to successfully understand the historic and contemporary ethnic
    [Show full text]
  • English Version of This Report Is the Only Official Document
    Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights ROMANIA PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS 6 DECEMBER 2020 ODIHR Special Election Assessment Mission Final Report Warsaw 23 April 2021 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ................................................................................................................ 1 INTRODUCTION AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ....................................................................... 3 BACKGROUND AND POLITICAL CONTEXT ............................................................................ 4 ELECTORAL SYSTEM AND LEGAL FRAMEWORK ............................................................... 5 ELECTION ADMINISTRATION .................................................................................................... 6 VOTER REGISTRATION ................................................................................................................ 8 CANDIDATE REGISTRATION ...................................................................................................... 9 CAMPAIGN ENVIRONMENT ...................................................................................................... 10 CAMPAIGN FINANCE ................................................................................................................... 11 MEDIA .............................................................................................................................................. 13 A. MEDIA ENVIRONMENT ......................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • A Spatial Analysis of the 2019 European Parliamentary Elections in the City of Iași Gutoiu, Giorgian
    www.ssoar.info A Spatial Analysis of the 2019 European Parliamentary Elections in the City of Iași Gutoiu, Giorgian Veröffentlichungsversion / Published Version Zeitschriftenartikel / journal article Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Gutoiu, G. (2019). A Spatial Analysis of the 2019 European Parliamentary Elections in the City of Iași. European Quarterly of Political Attitudes and Mentalities, 8(4), 1-19. https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-65044-8 Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer CC BY-NC-ND Lizenz This document is made available under a CC BY-NC-ND Licence (Namensnennung-Nicht-kommerziell-Keine Bearbeitung) zur (Attribution-Non Comercial-NoDerivatives). For more Information Verfügung gestellt. Nähere Auskünfte zu den CC-Lizenzen finden see: Sie hier: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.de European Quarterly of Political Attitudes and Mentalities EQPAM Volume 8, No.4, October 2019 ISSN 2285 – 4916 ISSN-L 2285 - 4916 A Spatial Analysis of the 2019 European Parliamentary Elections in the City of Iași _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Giorgian Guțoiu Faculty of Socio-Humanities Sciences ”Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu Romania Date of submission: August 6th, 2019 Date of acceptance: October 10th, 2019 __________________________________________________________________________________________________ Abstract European Parliament elections were held in Romania on 24 May 2019. The results were spectacular. PSD, the ruling party, suffered a major defeat, amidst a strong mobilization in favour of PNL and USR-PLUS, the main opposition parties. This paper is one of the first detailed attempts to understand the electoral behaviors at this contest. Voting decisions are researched through an exploratory spatial analysis on a case study of Iași, one of Romania's most important cities.
    [Show full text]
  • Kin-States and Kin Majorities from the Bottom-Up: Developing a Model of Nested Integration in Crimea & Moldova
    Kin-States and Kin Majorities from the Bottom-Up: Developing a Model of Nested Integration in Crimea & Moldova Eleanor Knott a thesis presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Government London School of Economics September 2015 Abstract With the increasing importance and prevalence of kin-state policies, this thesis identifies three gaps in existing kin-state research. Theoretically, existing literature focuses on how kin relations can induce or reduce conflict between states, overlooking the dynamics of interaction between kin-states andkin communities. Conceptually, existing literature focuses on kin communities as minorities, overlooking kin majorities. Methodologically, existing literature focuses on top-down institutional and state-level analyses of kin-state relations, overlooking bottom-up agency-centred perspectives. To address these gaps, the thesis develops a model of nested integration, to analyse relations been kin-states and kin majorities from a bottom-up perspective. Nested integration does not challenge the borders separating kin-state from kin communities, but affects the meaning of this border. The thesis examines the comparative explanatory power of this model of nested integration by generating evidence about the meanings of kin identification and engagement with different kin-state practices, through a cross-case comparison of Crimea vis-à-vis Russia and Moldova vis-à-vis Romania. These cases are selected from a wider kin majority typology as two contrasting examples of kin-state policies: Romanian citizenship in Moldova and Russian quasi-citizenship Compatriot policy in Crimea. Overall, the thesis argues that Moldova exhibits more nested integration than Crimea because of the type, legitimacy and availability of kin-state provision, which the thesis argues is consequential for the degree of nested integration observed.
    [Show full text]
  • Liberal Forces Are Expected to Win the Parliamentary Elections in Romania
    GENERAL ELECTIONS IN ROMANIA 6TH DECEMBER 2020 European Liberal forces are expected to Elections monitor win the parliamentary elections Corinne Deloy in Romania on 6 December next ANALYSIS On 3 September last, the Romanian authorities take third place with 20.4% of the vote. Far behind, the announced that the next parliamentary elections would People's Movement Party (PMP) is due to win 6%; the be held on 6 December this year. 18,981,242 people Union Pro Romania-Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, are being called to ballot and 39,238 Romanians living 5.2% and, finally, the Democratic Union of Hungarians abroad (the United Kingdom is the country with the in Romania (UDMR), 4.2%. largest number of voters, followed by Germany, Italy, Spain and France) are expected to fulfil their civic The Social Democratic Party won 1,438 town halls (but only duty. The number of candidates in these parliamentary two large cities, Craiova and Galati) and 20 regional councils elections totals 7,136 (there were 6,476 in the elections in the local elections of 27 September; the National Liberal on 11 December 2016). Party (PNL) won 1,237 (including Constanza, a social democratic stronghold, and Iasi) (-8) and 17 regions The Social Democratic Party (PSD), the main opposition (+8). party, has fought hard in recent weeks to obtain a However, this result did not constitute a victory for postponement of these elections, arguing that the health Marcel Ciolacu's PSD, which controlled half of the situation in Romania, like all European countries, has municipal and regional councils before the elections.
    [Show full text]