There were no surprises in first
\nround of the presidential elections in Romania, so the candidate of the Liberal
\nright and incumbent president Klaus Iohannis will be facing the leader of the
\nSocial Democratic Party Viorica Dancila in the second round on the 24th
\nof November. A surprise would have been if the candidate of the USR-Plus
\nAlliance Dan Barna had made it to the second round. Barna finished, however, in
\nthe third place, with a far worse score than that obtained by the Alliance at
\nthe latest European elections. Klaus Iohannis and the Liberal Party celebrated
\nthe victory, hoping they will do it again in two weeks’ time. Iohannis, who
\nblames the Social Democrats for damaging reforms in the area of the judiciary
\nand the economy, has warned that the victory is not in the bag yet and has
\ncalled on people to go out and vote:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The war with the Social Democratic
\nParty is not over yet, there’s one battle still left, one more step to overcome
\nin two weeks’ time. I say to those who took to the streets, as I did, to defend
\nthe rule of law, come out and vote in the second round, so that our struggle
\nwas not in vain! I say to those who want hospitals, schools and motorways to
\ncome out and vote so as to forever remove the Social Democratic Party from
\npower and do all these things together! To those who don’t want their children
\nand grandchildren to leave the country I say come out and vote because now we
\ncan change things! And to those many voters in the diaspora I say come out and
\nvote because now you can make the difference!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The leader of the Social Democratic
\nParty says she is not fighting against a party, but for the unity and dignity
\nof Romanians, and that she believes she can win:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
I would like to thank all those who
\nvoted with their hearts. The vote given today shows your trust. The vote given
\ntoday helps us to continue the election campaign, a campaign in which we will
\ncome before the Romanian people both with what we have accomplished and especially
\nwith what we want to do for them when we win the presidential elections. Our
\nfight is not against a particular political party, we don’t want to eliminate a
\npolitical party, because we live in a democracy and each political party must be
\nable to express its point of view. Our fight will be, as has been so far, for
\nthe Romanian people, for Romania, for equilibrium and consensus, for unity and
\nfor representing Romania with dignity, both at home and abroad.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Sociologists say that the electorate
\nwho voted for Klaus Iohannis is in the middle between Dan Barna’s voters -
\nmainly young people with medium and high education, in employment – and those who
\nvoted for Viorica Dancila – namely elderly, pensioners, with basic and medium
\neducation. Thus, half of Iohannis’ voters are between 35 and 64, with medium
\neducation and in employment. Voter turnout was below 48%, the lowest in the
\npresidential elections in Romania. The Romanian citizens living abroad have, however,
\nturned up in record numbers, reaching 675,000, adding to the 25,000 who voted
\nby post, a first in these elections. They were able to cast their votes over
\nthree days to prevent the long queues seen in previous elections. Klaus
\nIohannis has won the vote abroad with more than 50%, followed by Dan Barna,
\nwhile Viorica Dancila only came in fifth with around 3%. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Incumbent president Klaus Iohannis wins first round of the presidential elections and will face Social Democrat Viorica Dancila in the second round.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":82875,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[30247],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-83623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-elections"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n