Romania: Current Ruling Coalition Enters Alliance for Europarliamentary Elections

The current ruling coalition in Romania, the Socialists and the Liberals, decided to enter a political alliance meant to get as many seats as possible in the next EU Parliament. This looks like a move to block the accession of the so-called extremist parties in the European Parliament. On the other hand, both parties hope to increase their chances of getting more votes, but analysts contradict such a scenario.

Also, they decided to collate the Europarliamentary with the local elections.

AUR, the nationalist party led by George Simion, is the main target for both Socialists and Liberals during the Europarliamentary elections in June. AUR’s growth in popularity, based on lots of votes from the Romanians living abroad, could mean that the Euro skeptics could win more seats and create a more prominent political group.

The leaders of the two ruling parties, Marcel Ciolacu and Nicolae Ciuca, mentioned stability as the base of this political construction. The country needs stability; therefore, the two parties want to offer a stable political alliance. They also justified their decision to collate the local and the Europarliamentary elections with an opinion poll, supposedly conducted a day before the decision, whose results say Romanians want collated elections.

On the other hand, the Opposition parties denounce the Alliance as a blow to democracy and an attempt to confiscate the country’s ruling for the years to come.

National and European watchdogs are expected to say if the local and the Europarliamentary elections can be collated in Romania. Suppose these institutions give the green light to this initiative. In that case, there will be a complicated voting system in June, which will only add to the complicated political situation.

Strong opinions are saying that both Socialists and Liberals will lose crucial percentages, and they won’t be able to reach the desired 50% at the ballots. Currently, adding both parties’ voting intention, the math is under 50%, with the Socialists counting for 29.5 and Liberals for 18.8. Yet, with 18.4%, AUR is close behind the Liberals, and these percentages are in a predictable dynamic – the current ruling Coalition, especially after the alliance, is to lose some votes. At the same time, the Opposition, which includes the USR and the so-called Reformists, might win significant percentages in voting intention.