Centre-left and centre-right remain in top positions

The first round of the presidential elections places centre-right incumbent Traian Basescu in first place, followed by President of the centre-left Social Democratic Party (PSD) Mircea Geoana, who are facing a run-off on 6 December

December 2009 - From the Print Edition

Basescu, backed by the Democratic Liberal Party (PD-L), won 32.4 per cent of the vote, Mircea Geoana 31.2 per cent and National Liberal Party (PNL) leader Crin Antonescu 20 per cent.
This voting mirrors the general election of 2008, where the PD-L and PSD polled close to 30 per cent, with the PNL a distant third on 20 per cent.
For the second round, Antonescu has made a deal for the PNL to support Geoana, providing the PSD President appoints Mayor of Sibiu Klaus Johannis as Prime Minister. The deal includes a Government which will be formed from 50 per cent Social Democrats, while the remaining positions are taken up by the PNL and the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR).
Due to such a deal, Antonescu scrapped his pre-election pledge for a Government of technocrats.
However at the core of the PSD policy is an increase in income taxes for middle and higher earners, while the PNL favours the maintenance of the flat tax on incomes, which it intends to cut from 16 per cent to ten per cent.
Extremists did badly in the general election. Corneliu Vadim Tudor of the Greater Romania Party, who entered the second round against Ion iliescu in the 2000 election, only scored 5.6 per cent, while Gigi Becali, multi-millionaire financier of Steaua Bucuresti football club, scored only 1.91 per cent.
UDMR candidate Kelemen Hunor polled 3.83 per cent and Independent Mayor of Bucharest Sorin Oprescu 3.18 per cent. Meanwhile Green Party Candidate Remus Cernea won 0.6 per cent of the vote.
Most votes for Geoana came from Moldavia and Wallachia, while Transylvania, the Banat and Dobrogea regions voted for Basescu. In Harghita and Covasna counties, traditionally the fiefdoms of the Hungarians, Hunor came in first place. In Bucharest, Basescu won first place in all six sectors. Antonescu did not gain first place in any counties.
In terms of potential fraud, the main issue of concern was 3,360 special polling stations established for voters away from their residence. This is where multiple voting is suspected of taking place and an Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) report stated that “safeguards remained insufficient to fully guarantee the integrity of the electoral process”.
The Ministry of Administration and the Interior received over 1,000 reports of incidents and identified 72 violations of the law, mainly with regard to multiple voting and vote buying, including among the Roma community. Some political parties, which under the election law are not entitled to have observers, accredited their party activists through domestic observer organisations. PSD officials even told the OSCE their party would field activists accredited under the umbrella of various “foundations” on election day.