The Romanians began to vote Sunday, December 6, 2020 for legislative elections in which the pro-European liberals in power are given favorites, despite criticized management of the coronavirus which threatens to seal the end of the year celebrations.
More than 18 million voters are expected at the polls which will close at 9 p.m. local time (8 p.m. in France), an electoral process subject to the restrictive measures that have become the norm (masks, disinfectants, distancing).
Abroad, where the polling stations opened on Saturday, nearly 90,000 people had already cast their vote, according to the electoral authority (AEP).
Towards strong abstention
Driven by poverty, 4 million Romanians have emigrated in recent years, particularly in Western Europe, looking for a better paid job.
In Romania, however, there should not be crowds: the result of the combined effect of the pandemic and voter fatigue, the abstention rate could be around 60%, analysts say.
The race promises to be a contested one, but Prime Minister Ludovic Orban, at the head of a center-right minority government for a year, seems well positioned to keep his post.
His Liberal Party (PNL) is credited with 28% of the voting intentions in this ballot in a single round, ahead of the Social Democrats (PSD, opposition, 23%) and the reformists of a young center-right alliance, USR -More (18%), according to a latest survey from the IMAS institute.
In a region where populists and sovereignists are gaining ground, Ludovic Orban shows his attachment to European values and promises to modernize health and education systems with aging infrastructures, strained by the pandemic.
The Head of State supports his Prime Minister
The Liberals have a major advantage: the support of the popular head of state Klaus Iohannis, from their ranks.
Sweeping the accusations of“Violation of the Constitution”, the latter openly campaigned for the PNL and ruled out a return to social democratic affairs during his second term, which runs until 2024.
Friday, on the last day of the campaign, he launched a new spike at the PSD, wishing that “Romania is definitely separating from those who tried to derail it from its European and democratic course”.
Big winner of the previous election in 2016, this party launched a controversial overhaul of the judicial system which had prompted severe warnings from Brussels. This reform was also greeted by a wave of protest on an unprecedented scale since the fall of the communist regime at the end of 1989.
Weakened further by the imprisonment for corruption of its former leader Liviu Dragnea, the PSD, which has dominated the political scene for the past 30 years, was removed from power by a motion of censure at the end of 2019 but remains in the majority in Parliament .
Managing the epidemic becomes a campaign argument
Calling on Romanians to vote in numbers, Ludovic Orban pledged to stay the course of the reforms expected by the EU, of which Romania has been a member since 2007, and to rebound the economy, hard hit by the pandemic.
The new boss of the PSD, Marcel Ciolacu, however, accuses the government of“Incompetence”, reproaching him for“Failure” to keep the second wave of Covid-19 under control.
“The real virus facing Romania is […] NLP », he wrote on his Facebook account, while his party questions the validity of the restrictions in force.
Conversely, epidemiologists consider the measures taken insufficient. Excluding a delivery under the cover of the country as in the spring, the authorities favor local containment, in areas registering powerful sources of contagion.
Exodus of doctors and funding in dribbles, hospitals are already saturated and fear the moment when patients in serious condition will be refused for lack of beds.
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