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| UNINOMINAL VOTING IN ELECTORAL YEAR 05/03/2008 |
| (2008-03-05) |
| Last updated: 2008-03-06 12:38 EET |
“It took them years to bicker and only seven hours to enact a law,” the media noted, after on Tuesday the Chamber of Deputies in Bucharest passed the bill introducing the one-round uninominal voting system for the election of MPs and county council chairmen. The bill was endorsed on 231 votes, cast by the ruling National Liberal Party (PNL), the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the Democratic-Liberal Party (PD-L), the Conservative Party (PC), national minorities and independent MPs, with 11 nays - by the populist Greater Romania Party, PRM, in the Opposition, and 18 abstentions, by minor ruling partner Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania (UDMR).
Under the new law, starting with the legislative elections due this autumn, deputies and senators shall be elected in uninominal constituencies alone, and there shall be a proportional relation between the number of votes carried by a party and the number of seats it receives in Parliament. A deputy will represent 70 thousand citizens, and a Senator 160 thousand. Parties enter Parliament if they reach a 5 per cent electoral threshold, or if their candidates win 6 deputy and 3 senator seats. Alliances must reach an electoral threshold ranging between 8 and 10 per cent, depending on the number of member parties.
Originally promoted by the non-governmental organisation ProDemocratia, the system aims to create direct ties between constituency voters and their representatives, while also making sure that significant segments of the electorate do not go un-represented. The law stipulates that chairs of county councils are also to be elected on uninominal voting. The amendment was tabled and obstinately backed by PSD, whose so-called “local barons” have a strong grasp on power outside Bucharest. The nays and abstentions came as no surprise. PRM, dubbed by analysts a “leader's party”, whose image overlaps the increasingly worn out image of Senator Corneliu Vadim Tudor, has no high profile figures, and it admits to it. In turn, UDMR fears that the new voting system will eat into its 6-7 per cent parliamentary proportion, which has reflected fairly accurately so far the share of the Hungarian community.
Although apparently crushing, the majority of favourable votes should not be taken for granted, as it is the consequence of pressures by the media, civil society, presidency and, above all, of the citizens. Since the '90s, the list-voting system has been a second nature for Romanian politicians, regardless of their political complexion. The new law forces them to exercise their persuasion skills not on party leaders, which used to guarantee their election by placing their names on top of the list, but rather on the electorate from which they become alienated and which they only remember once every four years.
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