The list of presidential candidates

Romanias Central Electoral Bureau to publish on Friday the final list of candidates for the presidential elections in November.

Ştefan Stoica, 25.09.2019, 13:50

The presidential elections draw,
like a magnet, all kinds of people, from politicians, who feel they are
entitled to enter the presidential race, to eccentric or unknown figures
wishing to advertise themselves. This year’s presidential elections are no exception.
Moreover, some applications have raised serious question marks with respect to
legality. The Central Electoral Bureau has rejected some of them and has
informed the criminal authorities, suspecting that irregularities had taken
place with regard to the list of endorsement signatures. The official list of
candidates will be made public on Friday. The names that have already been
validated and who are important for the race are, however, already known to the
public.

The candidate with big chances to win
a second term is the incumbent president Klaus Iohannis; he is supported by the
National Liberal Party, the biggest opposition party. Well-liked in Washington,
where he has travelled twice during his term, as well as in Brussels, Iohannis
has been the main obstacle to what he described as the assault of the ruling
Social Democratic Party on the judiciary, as seen in the controversial reform
in the criminal and judicial areas initiated in the last three years since this
party has been in power. Klaus Iohannis is supported by a strong party with a
strong local presence, and appears to be hard to defeat at this point.

His main rival is the prime minister
and leader of the Social Democrats, Viorica Dancila. The two have dominated in
fact the political scene through a conflict with constitutional ramifications,
that between the president’s office and the government, which has erupted after
the departure of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats from the governing
coalition with the Social Democrats. From her mentor, the former Social
Democrats’ leader Liviu Dragnea who is now in prison for corruption, Viorica
Dancila has inherited a chaotic government and party. However, commentators say
one should not underestimate the ability to regenerate itself of the Social
Democratic Party, which is the largest in Romania in terms of number of members
and mayors.

The candidate who aspires to make it
to the second round ahead of Viorica Dancila is the representative of the
USR-PLUS Alliance, Dan Barna. He has criticised what he believes is the
passivity and lack of reaction of the current president at times that required
quick action. Barna says Iohannis and Dancila both belong to the old guard in
politics.

Iohannis is also the target of
criticism from the conservative right, whose candidate is the professor, essay
writer and diplomat Theodor Paleologu. Another candidate, Mircea Diaconu,
styles himself as a different kind of candidate. He proclaims his independence
but is backed by two parties born as splinter groups, namely Pro Romania and
the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats. Finally, the Democratic Union of Ethnic
Hungarians in Romania will have its own candidate, namely its leader Kelemen
Hunor. The votes of Romania’s ethnic Hungarian community are very important in
the second round. The first round of the presidential elections will be held on
the 10th of November and the decisive round on the 24th.