The Romanian Vote Abroad

In the second round of presidential elections, Romanians living abroad have turned out massively by comparison with the first round.

Roxana Vasile, 17.11.2014, 19:00

The presidential elections in Romania were played down to the last minute of the day of voting. Before taking the presidential seat, Klaus Iohannis, winner on behalf of the Christian Liberal Alliance, should take a bow to his patient co-nationals, according to an analyst in Bucharest, one day after the second round of elections. He was referring to the thousands of Romanians abroad who spent hours on end queuing up in order to exercise their fundamental right to vote.

The pictures making the rounds on social networks and TV screens bordered on the incredible. For thousands of them, it was an exercise in futility, because they left home without being able to vote. As a first reaction after exit poll results, Klaus Iohannis thanked everyone who showed up to vote. He added that the government was responsible for the organization of voting abroad 25 years after the Romanian Revolution, when people came out of their homes to fight, among other things, for the right to vote. After the first round, for days on end, the Foreign Ministry and the Central Election Bureau claimed the other was responsible for taking measures to help Romanians abroad vote in better conditions than they did on November 2.

The most important measure should have been to set up more polling stations. The idea was rejected, and, on November 16th, the number of people showing up to cast their vote was more than double as compared with the first round. The top countries in terms of voters were Italy, Spain, Moldova, the UK, France and Germany. In Turin and Paris, when the polls closed, because they were still waiting in line without having voted, Romanians showed their ire to the extent that they had to be scattered with tear gas by Italian and French police.

In solidarity with their co-nationals abroad, protesting the way in which elections outside the country were held, thousands of Romanians protested Sunday night in Bucharest and many other cities across the country. Many believe that the losing party in these elections are the authorities in general, not just the current prime minister, Victor Ponta. Between the two rounds of elections, he said that if a single Romanian in the Diaspora would be unable to exercise his right to vote, quote ‘The foreign minister, the undersecretaries, the ambassadors… would all leave’.