The local elections campaign kicks off in Romania

The campaign for the local elections has started on Friday.

Ştefan Stoica, 28.08.2020, 14:00

Initially scheduled for June but postponed for September 27th, Romanian local elections will be held under very special conditions this year, due to the coronavirus pandemic. The election campaign, which has started on Friday, will be subject to a number of restrictions. Thus, campaign staff and candidates will have to wear face masks at the meetings with the electorate, both indoor and outdoor. Events held in enclosed spaces can last 2 hours at the most and can be attended by maximum 50 people, while in the case of outdoor events as many as 100 people can participate. Moreover, for the door-to-door type of campaign, only teams of two people will be allowed.

This will be a rather unusual campaign, held at a complicated time, but democracy cannot be suspended or placed between the brackets, because it guarantees us all the rights and freedoms that we enjoy, president Klaus Iohannis pointed out. He addressed candidates in particular, urging them not to expose people to the danger of infection, because, he said, no electoral goal is more important than health, and any violation of the rules will have to be drastically sanctioned.

From a political perspective, this year’s local elections have a particularity noticed by the media once candidacies were launched. The big parties have given up the usual alliances with the small parties, which were useful when votes were needed but prone to blackmail. The latter, however, need visibility, given that local elections will be followed, at the end of the year, by legislative elections. This explains the big number of parties and candidates running in the local elections. In Bucharest alone, there are over 100 candidates to the seat of city mayor or district mayor.

The position of Bucharest mayor is disputed by established politicians and also by more exotic candidates such as second hand actors, a mountain guide, a diplomat or a driver. However, the electoral battle will be held not only in the capital Bucharest, but also in the other big cities, between the left wing, represented by the Social Democratic Party and the right wing represented by the National Liberal Party, the latter running alone or jointly with USR-PLUS. At stake are 41 seats of county council president, over 13 hundred seats of county councilors, 40 thousand seats of local councilors and 3200 mayor seats. (Translated by Elena Enache)