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| TEN DAYS TO THE ROMANIAN PARLIAMENT ELECTIONS 20/11/2008 |
| (2008-11-20) |
| Last updated: 2008-11-21 17:11 EET |
19 years after the fall of communism in our country, some 18 million Romanian voters will be called to the polls on November the 30th, to elect their senators and deputies IN what is considered to be an innovative ballot. 35 parties and coalitions, as well as a handful of independent candidates, are competing for one or several of the 319 deputy and 139 senator positions.
It is the first time since the ’89 Revolution that the new law of uninominal voting has been introduced, which means that, within any given constituency, only one candidate from each party may run for senator or deputy, and only one candidate may be elected from within an electoral college. According to the new law, uninominal constituencies made up of parties and coalitions must represent a minimum of 70,000 voters for each seat in the Chamber of Deputies, and 160,000 for a seat in the Senate.
Independent candidates must have the support of a minimum of 2,000 voters to be able to run for deputy, and 4,000 to run for the Senate. The elections will have only one round. In order to be elected to Parliament, the new law sets a threshold of 5 percent of all votes for parties and 4 percent for independent candidates. As usual, national minorities will have mandatory representatives in the Parliament as well.
One new aspect of this year’s elections is that voters will be able to elect 6 candidates to represent Romanians living abroad, which will be elected from the total of 38 candidates running on uninominal lists. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has made public the list of uninominal constituencies which represent Romanians abroad, divided into four regions for the Chamber of Deputies (Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Asia, North America, and Africa), and two for the Senate (Europe-Asia and the United States). Romanian citizens currently living abroad will be able to vote in their respective regions by presenting their passport or ID card.
Documents must state that the person in question is living abroad. Romanian citizens without residence in the country where they are currently located, including those who are abroad for tourism or business purposes, will not be allowed to vote. Statistics made by the Institute for Public Policy in Bucharest show that there are currently over 2 million Romanian citizens working or studying abroad, of which more than half do not fulfill the necessary requirements to be allowed to vote.
The Institute believes that a solution to this problem would be the instatement of the vote-by-mail procedure, already available in many countries. The new law instituting uninominal voting with extensions to citizens living abroad is the only one of its kind in Europe, and has been demanded by Romanians living abroad for many years.
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2025-04-03
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