Presidential elections in November 2014
Presidential elections were held in Romania in 2014. They were the seventh presidential elections held in post-1989 Romania. In the first round of the elections on 2 November, the top two of the fourteen candidates qualified in a run-off on 16 November. These candidates were Victor Ponta, former Prime Minister and ex-leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) who won around 40% of the vote in the first round, and Klaus Iohannis, then mayor of Sibiu () and leader of the Christian Liberal Alliance (ACL), who won around 30% in the first round respectively. Following large protests on how Ponta's government organized the elections in the diaspora, Klaus Iohannis staged a surprising come-back and won the run-off with 54.5%, or more than a million votes than his contender.
Ponta, who had been previously serving as Prime Minister of Romania since May 2012, ran his campaign on promoting an alleged national reconciliation message of a "great union" between all Romanians, defending his governance as balanced, with both progressive and right-wing measures, and promising to end the "era" established by the then incumbent president, Traian Băsescu. However, his government faced some indirect international criticism, with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland criticizing in October 2014 what she called the "cancer of democratic regression and corruption" in several Central and Southeast Europe nations and with politicians who "protect the corrupt office holders from prosecution and bypass parliament as often as it suits them". Iohannis, a Transylvanian Saxon (therefore part of the community of the Germans of Romania), focused his campaign on judicial independence and fiscal relaxation, and promised to promote "Romania of thoroughness" and a "Romania of things well done," while blaming the country's economic and political problems on the regional governance of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the so-called "barons".
The electoral campaign ran between 3 October and 1 November and was overshadowed by several corruption scandals (Microsoftgate, EADS, illegal retrocessions) involving key figures of PSD, but also the candidate Elena Udrea. Outgoing President Traian Băsescu accused Victor Ponta of being an undercover spy, incompatible under the Romanian legislation with a public position, while Klaus Iohannis faced accusations of incompatibility filed by the National Integrity Agency after September, 2013. Following very long voting times and large numbers of people who couldn't vote before the closing of polls in diaspora, large protests were staged in multiple cities across Romania and at Romanian embassies before the second round. This was regarded as both incapacity and unwillingness of Ponta's government to organize fair elections, and led to a surprisingly large turnout of over 64% (largest since 1996), and a surprise win for Iohannis in the second round.
Background.
Traian Băsescu won the last presidential election in 2009 and was sworn in for his second term on 21 December 2009. According to the Article 83 of the Constitution of Romania, the "term of office of the President of Romania is five years, being exercised from the date the oath was taken," but only for up to two terms.
The dates were decided by the government in February:
Candidates.
Fourteen candidates submitted to the Central Electoral Bureau files with the number of signatures collected from citizens (at least 200,000) by 23 September 2014: Victor Ponta, Klaus Iohannis, Monica Macovei, Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu, Teodor Meleșcanu, Elena Udrea, Dan Diaconescu, Hunor Kelemen, Zsolt Szilágyi, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, Constantin Rotaru, William Brînză, Mirel Mircea Amariței and Gheorghe Funar.
The left-wing parties designated a single candidate: Victor Ponta, the current Prime Minister. He was rated with the best chance of winning the election by main opinion polls. On the other hand, the main right-wing parties, strengthened under the Christian Liberal Alliance, have designated Klaus Iohannis, the second favorite of the opinion polls. However, the so-called "right wing" was still divided, with many newly formed parties with small number of members designating their own presidential candidates, such as Elena Udrea, candidate from the People's Movement Party and supported by the Christian Democratic National Peasants' Party. There were four independent candidates: former Prime Minister Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu, former Minister of Justice Monica Macovei, former Chief of the Foreign Intelligence Service Teodor Meleșcanu and former Mayor of Cluj-Napoca Gheorghe Funar.
This was a record number of candidates since 1996, since in 2000, 2004 and 2009, only 12 candidates were admitted each election. Likewise, this was the first time women candidates (Elena Udrea and Monica Macovei) ran for the position of president of the country and the first time three ethnics of the national minorities figure on the ballot papers. A number of people announced they would be running was greater, but they failed to gather the 200,000 signatures needed for the submission of the candidature to the Central Electoral Bureau by the 23 September deadline, such as Ioan Ghișe.
Several candidates had announced their intention to run for president, but eventually withdrew in favor of other candidates:
Campaign.
Victor Ponta launched his campaign on his birthday, in a huge rally on the National Arena. Over 70,000 people from across the country attended the rally. One of the stadium lawns was covered with four large panels inscribed with the slogan "Proud to be Romanians" and depicting Romanian folk motifs. Many opposing political analysts, members of the opposition and even President Traian Băsescu have likened the event to the rallies in the communist period dedicated to Nicolae Ceaușescu or, more recently, those dedicated to Kim Jong-un, the Supreme Leader of North Korea. Likewise, he was criticized by PMP candidate Elena Udrea for the cost of organizing such an event which, she said, was around 2 million euros.
Klaus Iohannis launched his campaign in front of the Government, in the presence of up to 30,000 people. The special guest of the event was the Secretary General of the EPP, Antonio López-Istúriz White, who stated that "Victor Ponta cannot and should not become president of the European Romania". The vast majority of Romanians are Eastern Orthodox Christians like Ponta, while Iohannis is Protestant. Commenting on a poll, according to which 58.22% of the respondents said for them the religion of the President mattered, while 39.81% said they were indifferent to the issue, Ponta said he did not believe that a candidate for President "has a problem if he is Orthodox or is not of Romanian ethnicity". Iohannis has reacted strongly to the statement by his rival, saying that bringing the issue of religion is a "painful attempt" to poison the campaign. Iohannis' slogan in the presidential campaign was "less talk, more things done", alluding to frequent television appearances of his rival, Victor Ponta. In his presidential program are mentioned, among others: deepening of the strategic partnership with the United States, allocation of 2% of GDP for defense, 6% for health and 6% for education, restructuring of the management system of EU funds, development of the capital market, keeping the flat tax, return of VAT to 19%, etc. Iohannis proposes a liberal economy based on competitiveness and prosperity, encouragement of a highly developed agriculture, connection of Romania to the Western world through infrastructure or decentralization, as "vector of modernization". Likewise, for Klaus Iohannis, the European path of the Republic of Moldova is a national priority.
Elena Udrea launched her campaign for the presidency through an anti-governmental march attended by 10,000 people. She expressed her intention to dissolve the Parliament and form a new Government, in the eventuality that she would win the election. Udrea is supported by outgoing President Traian Băsescu who intended to join the party Udrea leads at the end of his mandate in December.
During the early days following the first round of the 2 November election, that saw the two main candidates from all opinion polls facing off in a 16 November runoff, several of the candidates that fell short of acceding into the second round have declared their support for one of the two remaining candidates. Prime Minister and PSD leader Victor Ponta, who came first with 40.4% of the votes ahead of Sibiu mayor and ACL candidate Klaus Iohannis who earned a distant 30.3%, received the backing of the second runner-up, former premier and Senate president Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu, from the Liberal Reformist Party, who would also have been Ponta's proposal to replace him as Prime Minister, had Ponta won.
Other candidates who also publicly declared their support for Ponta were: Dan Diaconescu, from PP-DD, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, from PRM and independent candidate Teodor Meleșcanu. Despite UDMR's presence in the government led by Ponta, Hunor Kelemen expressed neutrality and recommended Hungarian electorate "vote according to their own beliefs". He said that UDMR can't support Victor Ponta in the second round because the Social Democrats have allied with PRM, an ultra-nationalist party, with which UDMR had several conflicts over time. Internationally, Ponta received support from many current Prime Ministers across Europe, like the Moldovan premier Iurie Leancă, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Serbian premier Aleksandar Vučić, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, Czech premier Bohuslav Sobotka, Georgian premier Irakli Garibashvili and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, among others. Also, the Party of European Socialists expressed clear support for the candidature of Ponta to the Romanian presidency.
Others were Sigmar Gabriel (Germany, SPD), Elio Di Rupo (Belgium, Parti Socialiste), Gianni Pittella (Italy) and Martin Schulz (President of the European Parliament).
Iohannis announced that he would not negotiate with other candidates, though he needed as much as 21% of the votes to recuperate and win. Elena Udrea, from the PMP–PNȚCD Alliance, didn't avowedly express her support for Klaus Iohannis, but stated that the vote on 16 November should be anti-Ponta. On the other hand, independents Monica Macovei and Mirel Mircea Amariței, as well as PPMT-backed Zsolt Szilágyi announced their support for Iohannis. Likewise, Iohannis enjoyed international support from the European People's Party and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Victor Ponta and key figures of his party accused Klaus Iohannis of wanting to separate Transylvania from the rest of Romania, because Iohannis won a large majority of the votes on 2 November in the intra-Carpathian region. Iohannis criticized these statements, describing them as "cretinisms". He also said that the idea of "breaking Transylvania" was "totally false, from another century and harmful", and came up because "people like the PRM are coopted for some votes". This topic was intensively discussed in local media. Many political commentators consider that dissimilar cultural heritage that each of the regions of Romania has is an exponent of the different vote expressed by Transylvania, Banat, Bukovina, Crișana and Maramureș, as opposed to Moldavia, Wallachia and Dobruja.
Opinion polls.
First round.
The problem of the seriousness and confidence in the opinion polls in the political domain is extremely controversial in Romania. Many people, especially members and supporters of the opposition, consider that the political affiliations of the directors of the main opinion polling firms have a significant impact in their results. For example, Sociopol is led by Mirel Palada, former spokesman for the government of Victor Ponta, while GSSC Avangarde is led by sociologist Marius Pieleanu, a confidant of the Conservative Party. The honorary president of CSCI is Bogdan Teodorescu, one of the strategists of Victor Ponta's campaign during these presidential elections. The main shareholder of IRES is Vasile Dâncu, former PSD senator. But not only the ruling party has tangents with the opinion polls. CCSCC published the results of a fictional survey during the European Parliament election of 25 May 2014, at liberal Horea Uioreanu's command, subsequently taken into custody for corruption.
Several opinion polls were conducted in the period preceding official announcement of the 14 candidates. Many of them showed Crin Antonescu instead of Klaus Iohannis or Cristian Diaconescu instead of Elena Udrea. In the polls also figured Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu and Cătălin Predoiu, which withdrew their candidacies after the political events in the summer of 2014. The following table displays the main candidates (at least 1%) and evolution of their percentages.
Graphical summary.
The following graph depicts the evolution of the standing of each candidate in the poll aggregators from September to October 2014.
Results.
The first round of voting was held on 2 November. Because no candidate obtained the support of more than 50% of registered voters, a second round was scheduled to be held two weeks later, on 16 November, with Victor Ponta and Klaus Iohannis running against each other.
Elena Udrea, Monica Macovei and Kelemen Hunor openly endorsed Iohannis in the second round. Dan Diaconescu positioned himself against Ponta, without openly endorsing Iohannis. Călin