Fourteen for Romania

The presidential election campaign has officially started in Romania on October 3rd.

România Internațional, 03.10.2014, 13:05

“Your vote shapes Romania!” is the title of the information campaign launched by the Standing Electoral Authority almost concurrently with the start of the election campaign, at midnight on Thursday. Video and audio clips are designed to raise the awareness of a population whose lack of interest in politics is reflected in lower voter turnouts by the year. Successive political scandals and the growing number of corruption cases have contributed to this indifference among the voters, who believe the country is going in the wrong direction regardless of which party is in power.

The Central Election Authority, however, tries to persuade people that their vote proves their interest in the future of their country and their community. The election campaign that started on October the 3rd is intended to increase the Romanians’ appetite for voting, through banners, posters, fliers, rallies, ads and election debates on the radio and television until November the 1st. In the first round, on November the 2nd, 14 candidates will run for the post the incumbent president Traian Basescu has been holding for the past 10 years.

The Social Democratic PM Victor Ponta and the representative of the Christian Liberal Alliance in opposition, Klaus Iohannis, stand the highest chances to make it to the runoff, scheduled for November the 16th. Victor Ponta intends, among others, to change the profile of the head of state from a crisis maker into a true representative of public interests and a facilitator of dialogue between the various social categories and power. His right-wing rival, Klaus Iohannis, also promises “another kind of politics,” with less noise and drama and more solutions for the people and for the country.

For the first time this year, two of the 14 candidates are women: Elena Udrea, from the pro-presidential People’s Movement Party, and ex-Justice Minister Monica Macovei, running as independent. Also for the first time, a former intelligence service chief, Teodor Melescanu, is running for president. Romanians will have 18,550 polling stations available in the country and 294 abroad. Nearly 21 million ballots will be printed and over 94 thousand stamps will be made for this election.