The race for president of Romania

Sundays first round of presidential elections left only two candidates in the race for the highest office.

Bogdan Matei, 05.11.2014, 14:18

Social Democrat Prime Minister Victor Ponta, with 40.44% of the votes, and the leader of the Liberal Party Klaus Iohannis, with 30.37% of the votes, together won approximately three quarters of the votes cast on Sunday, the rest being distributed among the remaining 12 candidates. One of them is Calin Popescu Tariceanu, a former leader of the National Liberal Party and Prime Minister of Romania between 2004-2008, at a time when Romania joined the European Union and registered a record economic growth.

Victor Ponta, one of the two candidates left in the presidential race, has stated that if he becomes president, Tariceanu, who got 5.36% of the votes cast on Sunday, would be his first choice for the position of prime minister, but that he is also considering a few other options:

“I believe that the best solution for the position of Prime Minister now is Calin Popescu Tariceanu. This would be my first option. Also, I’ve talked with my colleagues whether, in the coming days or weeks, we should send a clear signal with regard to maintaining the fiscal and budget discipline, and in this case I do not exclude the possibility of having a technocrat as prime-minister, namely the first vice-governor of the Central Bank, Florin Georgescu. If, on the other hand, there appears a strategic security threat for Romania and we need to show that we are committed to the country’s democratic development and its international obligations, we can also consider George Maior for the office of prime minister, following his resignation as director of the Romanian Intelligence Office after the elections, as he said he would do.”

Besides Tariceanu, Ponta is also sure of the support of two other former opponents, namely the leader of the populist Greater Romania Party, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, who won 3.68% of the votes, and the former head of the Foreign Intelligence Office, Teodor Melescanu, who only got 1% of the votes.

Ponta’s rival in the second round run-off, Klaus Iohannis has announced he will not negotiate with his former counter-candidates for their support for the second round:

“I will not trade Romanians’ votes as if they were a commodity, this is simply unacceptable. This is why I will not negotiate with the candidates that did not make it into the second round, as there is nothing to negotiate. These votes are not in their pockets. These votes belong to Romanian voters. I will not become involved in political bargaining and promise positions of prime minister or presidential advisor in exchange for votes. I simply cannot do that.”

Iohannis says, though, that in the final round he is counting on the support of all the parties affiliated to the centre-right European People’s Party: the National Liberal Party and the Liberal Democratic Party making up the Christian Liberal Alliance; the People’s Movement Party and the Christian Democratic Peasant Party, whose joint candidate, Elena Udrea, won 5% of the votes; as well as the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, which commonly enjoys the support of around 6% of the voters.