Intermediate elections: A user' s manual

The Romanian local elections are a special case of intermediate elections. Through the low voter turnout, they allow the manifestation of the strategic vote which places parties with a powerful local network at an advantage, as well as the networks of the anti-establishment factions. What electoral system analysts view as intermediary elections is the electoral competitions which take place in the interval between the elections which are considered principal and which the public pays attention to. Thus, the beginning of the term elections in the United States or the elections for the European Parliament or the municipal ones in Europe are relevant for these cases. And the elections of June 5th are no exception from that rule.

The low voter turnout in June 2016 is nothing unusual at all: since February 1992, in the first local elections after the revolution the overall trend has been downward. In 1992 the turnout - the first round will continue to be used as reference to allow comparison with the 2016 elections - was 65% (20% lower than on May 20th, 1990, in the first general elections), in June 1996 it was already down to 56.47%, and in 2000 it would reach 50.85%. In the 2004 elections the voter turnout increased to 54.23%, and then in 2008 it fell back to 49.38%, to increase again in 2012 to 56.39% and then fell back in June 2016 to 48.43%.

But the situations of 2004 and 2012 can be explained through the politicization of the local elections; in 2004 through the appearance of the DA alliance, and in 2012 through the powerful campaign of the USL (which had just won the government in May 2012 after the vote of no confidence against the Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu government) against president Traian Băsescu. The two cases seem to be more the exceptions that validate the rule; where the intermediate elections are concerned, the interest of the public is low and can only be given a shot in the arm by increasing the conflictual nature of the competition. That is what has happened in the regional elections held last December in France or in last month's Austrian presidential elections.

On the other hand, the drop in voter turnout in the local elections should not be made into an absolute, especially since the public opinion has become aware, after the 2012 referendum for the dismissal of the president, that the formal electoral population (registered) is different from the effective electoral population (the one in the country on the date of the elections). And in the local elections, where there is no vote by mail or vote in the embassies, the millions of Romanians outside the borders cannot express their rights to vote. If we take that reality into account, we can say that the voter turnout was not as bad in 2016, with the exception of major cities (Bucharest or Iaşi with a turnout of 33% or Timişoara with 28%). But the difference between the number of urban and rural voters also has an explanation, because in the major cities the interest in local elections is far lower due to the huge detachment between the elected and their voters. Meanwhile, in the medium and small cities and especially in the rural areas, the relationship between the local authorities and citizens is a lot more direct.

In this context, the parties that have a network, such as the PSD, as well as the PNL, as well as the anti-system party like the USB were able to exploit the situation. Essentially, the dual party trend of the Romanian political system has been reinforced, because it is for the first time after the Revolution that two parties get almost 70% of the votes together, and almost 80% of the mandates distributed. Up until now it was never the PNL, only an alliance it was a part of that was able to achieve that (CDR, Alianţa DA, USL). And the case of the USB is more of an exception: a local party that exploits the inability of the liberals to select a candidate of their own for Bucharest. And since politics abhors a vacuum, that void has been filled by the PSD which earned this unequivocal victory in Bucharest.