Romania presidential elections 2019: president Iohannis scores historic win

President Klaus Iohannis scored a victory against former prime minister Viorica Dancila, according to the first official exit polls released at 21:00, when the voting ended in the country.

Iohannis received 66.5% of the votes compared to 33.5% for Viorica Dancila, according to the IRES exit poll. The other exit poll, carried out by CURS Avangarde, showed a score of 64.8% for Iohannis and 35.2% for Dancila. The IRES results include estimations about the Diaspora vote while the CURS Avangarde results don’t include such adjustments, Romania Insider reads.

The partial results largely confirm the exit polls. With 98% of the votes in the country counted and centralized, Klaus Iohannis has a score of over 63%. In the Diaspora, out of the 277,000 votes counted so far (at 23:53 Bucharest time), 93% were for Iohannis, according to data from the Permanent Electoral Authority (AEP). Thus, the final results are likely to show an overall score of over 65% for the incumbent president.

Over 9 million Romanians voted in the country (almost 50% of the total number of registered voters) while over 930,000 Romanians voted abroad, a new record.