The super-election year in Romania, as newspapers have dubbed it, with presidential election in September and Parliamentary election in December, comes with a first on June 9th: the ballot for the European Parliament will be taking place concurrently with the election for the local administration.
15 political formations have already submitted their lists of virtual MEPs adding to the already known seven independent candidates. Tuesday will also see the registration of those running for the seats of mayors, presidents of local and county councils, and for local and county councilors.
Political parties, alliances, the citizens’ organizations belonging to national minorities and independent candidates can submit their candidacies at the election bureaus until April 30th.
The documents, according to a decision of the Central Election Bureau must include a list of candidates, a list of supporters for each candidate, a copy of their ID documents, income and interest declarations, a declaration of accepting the candidacy, an affidavit that they didn’t work for or collaborate with the former political police of the communist regime, known as the Securitate.
The election campaign for the European Parliament on the public and private radio and TV channels, starts on May 10, zero hour and ends on June 8, at 7 hours. The press expects a noisy and intricate campaign due to the unexpected overlapping elections. Analysts say that this risks to contaminate debates over Brussels’ policies, such as the famous and unpopular Green Deal, which stirred heated debates among the candidates over potholes on certain village roads. According to mass-media, the most bizarre is the situation of the PSD-PNL government coalition.
When they decided to stage the two elections on the same day, the rulers invoked the idea of cutting expenses and the turnout, which is supposed to be higher when people must vote for their mayors then for MEPs.
Furthermore, in another absolute first, the two ruling parties have drawn a joint list for the EU election, although they are part of different political families at European level, PSD belongs to the Socialists whereas the PNL to the People’s Party. In Romania, however, the Social-Democrats and the Liberals will have their own candidates in city halls and county councils and that promises a cut-throat election race. And although the election campaign hasn’t started yet, political debates on various TV channels are already fraught with mutual attacks between the representatives of the two ruling parties.
(bill)