The left and the right face each other in the presidential final

Incumbent president Klaus Iohannis wins first round of the presidential elections and will face Social Democrat Viorica Dancila in the second round.

Ştefan Stoica, 11.11.2019, 13:55

There were no surprises in first
round of the presidential elections in Romania, so the candidate of the Liberal
right and incumbent president Klaus Iohannis will be facing the leader of the
Social Democratic Party Viorica Dancila in the second round on the 24th
of November. A surprise would have been if the candidate of the USR-Plus
Alliance Dan Barna had made it to the second round. Barna finished, however, in
the third place, with a far worse score than that obtained by the Alliance at
the latest European elections. Klaus Iohannis and the Liberal Party celebrated
the victory, hoping they will do it again in two weeks’ time. Iohannis, who
blames the Social Democrats for damaging reforms in the area of the judiciary
and the economy, has warned that the victory is not in the bag yet and has
called on people to go out and vote:

The war with the Social Democratic
Party is not over yet, there’s one battle still left, one more step to overcome
in two weeks’ time. I say to those who took to the streets, as I did, to defend
the rule of law, come out and vote in the second round, so that our struggle
was not in vain! I say to those who want hospitals, schools and motorways to
come out and vote so as to forever remove the Social Democratic Party from
power and do all these things together! To those who don’t want their children
and grandchildren to leave the country I say come out and vote because now we
can change things! And to those many voters in the diaspora I say come out and
vote because now you can make the difference!

The leader of the Social Democratic
Party says she is not fighting against a party, but for the unity and dignity
of Romanians, and that she believes she can win:

I would like to thank all those who
voted with their hearts. The vote given today shows your trust. The vote given
today helps us to continue the election campaign, a campaign in which we will
come before the Romanian people both with what we have accomplished and especially
with what we want to do for them when we win the presidential elections. Our
fight is not against a particular political party, we don’t want to eliminate a
political party, because we live in a democracy and each political party must be
able to express its point of view. Our fight will be, as has been so far, for
the Romanian people, for Romania, for equilibrium and consensus, for unity and
for representing Romania with dignity, both at home and abroad.

Sociologists say that the electorate
who voted for Klaus Iohannis is in the middle between Dan Barna’s voters -
mainly young people with medium and high education, in employment – and those who
voted for Viorica Dancila – namely elderly, pensioners, with basic and medium
education. Thus, half of Iohannis’ voters are between 35 and 64, with medium
education and in employment. Voter turnout was below 48%, the lowest in the
presidential elections in Romania. The Romanian citizens living abroad have, however,
turned up in record numbers, reaching 675,000, adding to the 25,000 who voted
by post, a first in these elections. They were able to cast their votes over
three days to prevent the long queues seen in previous elections. Klaus
Iohannis has won the vote abroad with more than 50%, followed by Dan Barna,
while Viorica Dancila only came in fifth with around 3%.