Parliamentary elections on National Day

The governing coalition PSD-PNL decided, yesterday, that the parliamentary elections will take place on December 1, Romania's National Day. Following the meeting at the Victoria Palace, the two delegations led by Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu and Nicolae Ciucă - the PNL president established the following calendar: the first round of the presidential elections will be on November 24, followed by the parliamentary elections on December 1, then the second round of presidential elections on December 8.

Taking into account that November 30 and December 1 are legal holidays and taking into account that the weather during that period is quite cold, it remains to be seen what the voter turnout will be in the parliamentary elections. If the turnout will be low, well below the percentage of 52.4% registered in the European and local parliaments, there is a risk that the extremist parties will get more seats than the opinion polls currently estimate. If the voter turnout will be high, benefiting from a strong mobilization of the assets of the two big parties, PSD and PNL, then AUR and SOS could stay with the score recorded at the European Parliament.

The stake of the electoral calendar established yesterday by the leaders of the governing coalition is the fact that the parties that send their presidential candidates in the 2nd round will be "rewarded" in the parliamentary elections between the two rounds, because they will benefit from the mobilization of their own voters who have a major political stake . On the other hand, the parties that will not take their candidate to the second round of the presidential elections could be penalized by the electorate in the parliamentary elections.

We remind you that at the beginning of this week, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, president of PSD, had consultations with political parties on the date of organizing the presidential and parliamentary elections. The Head of the Executive has announced since last Friday that he will invite the leaders of the political parties to discuss the calendar of the presidential elections, arguing that the "hopping" on this topic affects the trust between the partners and must stop.

On Monday, the representatives of USR, AUR, UDMR, SOS Romania, those of the Group of National Minorities in the Chamber of Deputies and those of PUSL participated in the talks with the Prime Minister. On Tuesday, the dialogue continued with representatives of REPER and those from Forţa Dreptei. The USR delegation reaffirmed, at the discussions with the Government regarding the election calendar, that it wants to respect the law and elections on time, as stated by the president of the formation, Elena Lasconi. The president of the AUR party, George Simion, said that his party was ready for presidential elections on September 15, but Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu "was tricked again", "seems captive to some interest groups" and considers December. The leader of the UDMR senators, Cseke Attila, stated that the Hungarian Democratic Union in Romania supports the separation of presidential and parliamentary elections and proposed, during consultations with Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, from the Victoria Palace, that the elections for the country's president be set in October. Reunited on Monday in the meeting of the National Political Bureau, the leadership of the PNL unanimously agreed that the presidential elections should take place on time, namely in November, declared the president of the formation, Nicolae Ciucă. "Unanimously, all the members of the National Political Bureau agreed that we should continue to support the holding of the presidential elections on time," said the liberal leader.