Romanian Elections&Politics (June 9th - Local and europarliamentary elections)

[RGM2609]

I have started to write long posts about the perspectives of each party, at least in my view. I lost the PNL one but I will rewrite it sometime soon. Meanwhile, the one on PSD is on the thread a few posts back if you want to read it. Anyway, now on to USR-PLUS, the third party -

Certain parties exist to represent a socio-economic class, and they have the guarantee of a base to rely on no matter what. This is why PRM and to an extent PUNR gained seats for years regardless of their accomplishments while PNTCD/CDR did not get back into Parliament in 2000 despite winning the 1996 election.

USR-PLUS falls into the first category, and this is why they are the simplest party to analyse. They are the party of the post-industrial society and of the Romanians abroad who got to know how live really is in the West. Its evolution is being constantly influenced by these 2 groups rather than by itself and its decisions, and is being fed by PNL having a human resources policy that is inadequate to current times causing it to seem to some as a failed clone of PSD, by PNL and PSD being unofficial allies in a lot of counties outside Transylvania, by political leaders in the 2 parties being anything but charismatic and dynamic (or at least some), by corruption, by the absence of a socially center-left party, by the Orthodox Church being held sacred by all other parties, by an unreformed state etc. Its decisions are having a much lower effect on its own fate than the evolution of the aforementioned factors.

Now the party is at about 18-19% in the opinion polls and in the past elections. Much lower then the historic average of parties like PSD or PDL. But on the other hand, PRM has only once gotten more. PMP and ALDE, both led by very well known politicians with extensive careers, only have a third of that at best. Politicians who are said to have defined decades of Romanian politics and who have been permanently on TV for the past 15 years can not hope to get even close to USR (I mean, Vadim is dead, but you get my point). However, USRPLUS is in front of the toughest political test yet - local elections, the only one it has not passed through yet. These elections will not be about the brand of the party but mostly about the reputation and energy of its members. People who are not living currently in their home areas tend to vote with USRPLUS for obvious reasons, but will not be able to do so this time. Its problems may have been partially solved by an unexpected gift from PNL, which dumbly accepted hundreds of PSD mayors within its ranks. Now, the narrative of USR related to the old parties is once again confirmed thanks to this move.

The local elections also expose the only major mistake that the party keeps making - the tendency to focus on internal problems too much. The first half of 2020 has been spent mostly on deciding things like the fate of the party founder, the relationship between the party leader and the broader leadership, between the broader leadership and the local offices and so on. The result is now everyone is rushing to restore contact with local communities because of the time that was lost.

Now, on medium and long term, USR-PLUS is poised to spend the next years as a secondary partner to PNL, unless something radical happens between now and December. Until the mega-election year 2024, it will have to answer critical questions about itself and its path forward. There is also the danger of its base running out. The education system is built to create people perfect for the 1960s, for now it has been too ineffective but maybe it can get better at it. And besides, how can they get to 30% from the 15-20 they currently have. They need to give good answers to these questions, as 2024 is an year in which all 4 kinds of elections happen. And then, its fate could get decided.

(Alright, I hope you enjoyed this post. I will post about the PSD Congress later today and then I may take a break as I feel like I am overwhelming the thread.)

Have a nice day!

[RGM2609]

Unsurprisingly, the incumbent PSD leader and Speaker of the Chamber Marcel Ciolacu was elected with 90% of the vote while his opponent, former Finance Minister Eugen Teodorovici, got 6%. He will lead the party until after the Parliamentary elections, when a new Congress will happen.

He gave the classic speech that PSD gives after losing elections, namely putting all of the blame on the former leaders, saying the opponents are even worse and promising changes. I doubt anyone believes it at this point and it alienates the people who stayed with the party but maybe I am wrong.

He proceeded to contradict his entire speech by proposing Gabriela Firea, the Bucharest Mayor and Sorin Grindeanu, former Prime Minister who gave the famous Emergency Order to prevent Dragnea from going to jail and mobilized a million people to protests as his Deputies. The entire leadership was stacked with local barons and controversial figures.

[RGM2609]

He gave the classic speech that PSD gives after losing elections, namely putting all of the blame on the former leaders, saying the opponents are even worse and promising changes.

Tbf isn't the stock speech of most new party leaders after an election loss

True, but they have to give it so often that it became a sort of symbol of the party lol. Also there are a lot of angry articles on the Russian propaganda site Sputnik against Ciolacu because of him going against Dragnea

[RGM2609]

A very weird incident has happened today in Bucharest, as PSD disguised some members as transexuals volunteering for USR and had them spread posters in the city. Obviously they were harassed by the overwhelmingly transphobic population in the city and then the video got spread all over social media. USR has threatened to sue PSD over this.

Another weird thing which scandalized the public opinion were leaders of the Police secretely meeting with members of a criminal gang to ensure a safe funeral for their dead leader, at least according to them. The anger from the people over this keeting which was widely deemed as below the dignity of police officers was big, and even the President had to address it.

And as usual, the local elections cause very...interesting candidates to show up, including many meme candidates (Firea is probably also one of them...).

[RGM2609]

Alright so I have written posts about the future of the 3 largest parties and today I will like to discuss 2 of the smaller ones - PMP and ALDE. Enjoy!

The 2 parties, despite being on opposite sides of the political spectrum, share a surprising ammount of simmilarities, beyond the fact that they are both proposing their founders for the Bucharest Mayorship. Both of them were created mostly by the former PDL getting closer with and eventually joining PNL, claiming that they are the true right wing. Both of them are usually around the crucial 5% and gain about 400.000 votes. Both are led, officially or unofficially by politicians who were stars in the 2000s but have since lost their relevance. And both are associated with their leader above all, and failed to produce other well-known politicians. In a way, they are an element of the past stuck in 2020.

And they are both facing a crucial fight for their future in December, as any score under 5% would sent them straight to the dustbin of history. PMP is probably better positioned to succeed. It has more experience, it has never failed to reach 5%, the parliamentary elections always happen under lower turnout (despite them being the more important ones) allowing PMP to get in the Parliament with its usual number of votes. It also seem to be rising from election to election lately. The organizational experience of former PDL members is crucial, maybe even more crucial than Basescu. The existence of this party fascinates me, as it seems to have a discreet but certain presence in every city or village despite its message or identity being either unclear or totally shared with PNL or even PSD.

On the other hand, ALDE is unlikely to pass the threshold again. During the last election for the European Parliament, it got 4%, and lost about 15% of the voters in 2016. While this would not have been a huge development on its own, there was a certain widespread shock given the polls before the election either gave it high single digits or double digits. This was not a singular phenomena, as polls always seem to overestimate it, giving it 10% before the campaign and have it collapse at half of that during it. But now, not even polls are optimistic about the party, always rating it at abysmal levels. It seems that whatever supporters it still had by 2019 have since reorientated to Victor Ponta. Unless Tariceanu has a truly stellar performance in Bucgarest, ALDE is probably done. As I said before, them leaving PSD only to unexplicably withdraw Tariceanu's long-anticipated presidential run was the worst of both worlds, and it left everyone unhappy.

So ALDE is heading towards its demise, but PMP's situation is more interesting. It will probably get in the Parliament again, but it also needs PNL and USR to be unable to form a coalition on their own so they are forced to have PMP in the government. On the other hand, it can't attack them too harshly or they might have some other minor party (UDMR) join them (given Basescu's run, this can happen either way). Yeah, it is complicated, but also pointless. Ideologically PMP is a smaller PNL, and only Basescu's ego is preventing them from merging.

[RGM2609]

Hi everyone, so today the long-expected motion of no confidence in the Orban government introduced by PSD had to be voted on. No other party or parliamentary group wanted to vote for it and all mass boycotted it, and PSD&satellites combined with Ponta's party, ProRomania, had 233 MPs, exactly the number required to pass such a motion.

On the day of voting, following 3 hours of delays and failed attempts at starting proceedings, there were 226 MPs in the Chamber, even those barely gathered together, and it is unknown whether the number includes some MPs from other parties who were present but would not vote. Thus the quorum was not met and the meeting ended. It is hard to overestimate the consequences of this very public failure, as it was shown to everyone PSD lost control over an institution that it easily dominated and that it was isolated in the political scene, not to mention the ridicule of failing after so many threats of taking down the government. A not-insignificant number of PSD MPs absented, some being hardcore Dragnea loyalists and some fearing losing their seats in the next legislature. The latter group may substantially increase after this failure and Ciolacu's threat to submit more motions is laughable given the context.

Also a new IMAS poll shows even more bad news for PSD - 34% PNL, 21% PSD, 18% USRPLUS, 11% ProRomania, 6% UDMR, 4% PMP, 2% ALDE, 1% PPU

[RGM2609]

How much the results of the local elections indicate the ones of the parliamentary ones

On September 27th, Romanians will be able to vote on 4 different ballots. The ones for Mayor and County Chairman are very heavily personalized. On the other hand, the ones for Local Council and County Council are based upon a list. The elections on Local Council can include, mostly for voters in rural areas and small towns, relatives, friends or other people they know on the lists. However, on the lists for the County Council, the notoriety of those on them is almost always equaling zero. This is a party vote.

It could be expected for big variations to appear between the County Council elections and the parliamentary elections. Nothing prevents voters to select the party of the Mayor candidate they like on all 4 ballots and to then switch to their preferred party at the parliamentary. However, that is often not the case.

With some exceptions, the most voted 3 parties for County Councils were the most voted ones for parliamentary elections too. That will likely be the case in 2020 too. The exceptions were when a party (FSN) literally broke apart between the elections (1992), the second and third-placed parties joined in an alliance (2004) and the difference between the first and second parties was smaller than 1% (2008). Neither seems likely to happen this year, as such the places the parties get now will likely be the same ones they get in December.

There is a widespread myth that the number of Mayors decides who wins the Parliamentary; that is false. In 1992, Roman's and Iliescu's parties had five times as many mayors as the CDR (combined), but did not even get twice as many votes. In 2004, PSD won 1700 mayors and PNL-PD only 800, yet the results of the Parliamentary were close. In 2008, PSD and PDL were statistically tied despite PSD having 1100 mayors and PDL only 900. (sorry if this got confusing)

The pattern shows that PSD almost always dominates when it comes to the number of Mayors, but that does not always translates to much bigger scores at the crucial parliamentary elections. That is mostly because their Mayors are largely elected in depleted and small rural areas with an underwhelming impact on the nationwide result. Sometimes, over 50 rural areas/villages have less voters than 3 cities. Thus, the number of Mayors is misleading.

[RGM2609]

So the Breaking News in Romania right now is an accident had by the Transportation Minister while his car was driving on the opposite side of the road to avoid a long line. Thankfully no one died, however it brought back painful memories of the death of a policemen in 2015 while being a part of then-Deputy PM Gabriel Oprea's unnecessary motorcade which drew huge national backlash. President Iohannis dismissed the comparison during a press conference, however this a part of a larger pattern of high-ranking officials openly ignoring laws, such as speed limits or no-smoking-in-public-buildings, for their own comfort.

[RGM2609]

Following the deeply weird video involving disguised LGBT members campaigning for USR-PLUS, the press has finally gotten to the bottom of it and we now know who planned it.

- After the national backlash, the video got deleted from Facebook, where it was mass spread by a man named Cristinel Iliescu, a PSD activist from the 2nd District of Bucharest. The heads and candidates of the district organization claimed they had no connection with it and forced the rogue activist to write a message of apology. He did so, and also accused PNL of sending it to him.

- Not long afterwards, another video started being spread on Facebook, likely filmed in the same place, of a homosexual celebrity declaring his support for USR PLUS because they would legalize gay marriage. The celebrity, when contacted by the press, admitted to being paid for it but refused to say by who. The video was spread by an obscure online newspaper owned by Victor Nicolae Bogdan, the chairman of the organization of the Pro-Europe Party of the Roma in the 6th District of Bucharest. He is apparently a confidante of the PSD Mayor of the same district, as he even owns another newspaper together with him and routinely does party activism using the media he coordinates.

- Another connection between the Pro-Europe Party of the Roma and the videos is another activist that mass spread them, who ran for the mayorship of the 5th District a couple of years ago from the same party. He is close to the media owner mentioned above. When asked by the media, he accused PSD of being behind it.

- Yet another small party involved with the spreading of homophobic videos is the Romanian Ecologist Party, which for the past few years has become more and more of a PSD satellite. The current head of its organization in the 5th District (the one which spread the videos) was an advisor to Viorica Dancila and also a cousin of the leader of the Pro-Europe Party of the Roma, who denied any involvement. However it seems like the Pro-Europe Party of the Roma has been the unifying factor around all of these homophobic incidents.

- The Pro-Europe Party of the Roma has long been perceived as a satellite of PSD, and before 2008 it was called the Social Democratic Party of the Roma.

(only informing you of this because of boredom and some interest towards LGBT rights in Romania. Sorry if it was irrelevant)

[RGM2609]

No, it’s quite interesting. Exactly how many satellites does PSD have?

PSD has been obsessed, to an unhealthy degree, of getting as many small parties, of various self-proclaimed ideologies, around it probably to create the impression of a "national unity" sort of movement as well as use their officials/resources. I would estimate their number at about 50, however I will give you a list of the most visible ones. For the record, I will not list Ponta's ProRomania as a satellite given its unusually high poll numbers even as it is one in some ways:

1. Tariceanu's ALDE
2. PPUSL, a party quite literally owned by pro-PSD oligarch Dan Voiculescu who owns one of the biggest news televisions in Romania.
3. PRU, a party quite literally owned by fugitive Sebastian Ghita who owns another very watched news television. It's role has also been to spread a very nationalist and xenophobic message so the population gets used to it before PSD starts openly doing it too.
4. All or most of the 17 minorities party other than UDMR who are legally entitled to a Representative in the Parliament (among which the Pro-Europe Party of the Roma)
5. The one which upsets me the most - PNTCD, a historical party and the head of anti-Iliescu resistance in the 1990s, the party of legendary figures.
6. The Romanian Ecologist Party, which has always been around and became close to PSD in recent years
7. UNPR, the once-dead party of Gabriel Oprea who was mentioned in a post above and now desperately wants to become relevant again.
8. The National Force Party, formed by former ALDE members who stood by the Viorica Dancila Government after Tariceanu left it
9. Romanian Nationhood Party, formed by a former PSD member who promoted conspiracy theories so outrageous that even his party was forced to kick him out
10. Romanian Socialist Party, a self-proclaimed communist party which does not really have a presence in the country but is quite active on social media and eager to attack PNL and Iohannis

I will write more of them once I remember them. Many of its satellites are just local parties however.

[RGM2609]

On September 27th Romanians will go to the polls to elect their local representatives. While this involves thousands and thousands of individual races, as usual the attention of the nation and the media is focused on the fight for the Mayorship of Bucharest and its 6 districts. Here are the races with a brief summary and a rating -

Bucharest Mayor - Mayor Gabriela Firea (PSD) vs Nicusor Dan (USR-PNL) vs Traian Basescu (PMP)
Rating - leaning towards a Nicusor Dan victory
The fight for being the Mayor of Bucharest is an event even on itself and the trend for the crucial parliamentary election is often decided there. Given that Romania still uses the antiquated no-runoffs system to elect its local representatives, the main right wing parties, USR and PNL, had to unite to prevent victories by the PSD candidates solely because of the split in liberal votes. They selected Nicusor Dan, the founder of USR and a civic activist who is quite popular and well known in the city. He also ran in 2012 and 2016, and last time he got 30% of the vote as basically an independent. Normally Firea would lose in such a scenario, especially given her lack of performance, however she is being kept in the game by Former President Basescu, who has entered the race and is sure to take votes from Nicusor Dan, as well as by her relative charisma.

District 1 Mayor - Mayor Daniel Tudorache (PSD) vs Clotilde Armand (USR-PNL)
Rating - leaning towards an USR-PNL victory
This is yet another rematch from four years ago, with Clotilde Armand being an USR star who was actually born in France but lost to Tudorache in a very close (many say rigged) contest in 2016. As District 1 is the most liberal one in the city, if Tudorache gets reelected it is a signal that the rightists are not doing well at all. This is by far the most intense and well-known contest among the District ones as the Mayor keeps sending Policemen to stalk his opponent for whatever reason, and it is also pretty much a culture war, so whichever side wins will get a morale boost.

District 2 Mayor - Dan Cristian Popescu (PSD) vs Radu Mihaiu (USR-PNL) vs Niculai Ontanu (PPUSL)
Rating - leaning towards a PSD victory
This a rather complicated one so bear with me - the incumbent PSD mayor refused to run for another term, and PNL wanted to propose Dan Cristian Popescu, a well known politician who is not the cleanest however. USR refused to support him and thus Popescu did not have a party to run from, until Firea recruited him to run for PSD. The race is further complicated by the entrance of Niculai Ontanu, who led the District for decades before being arrested in 2016. While he is unlikely to win, he will probably take a lot of votes from the PSD candidate.

District 3 Mayor - Mayor Robert Negoita (ProRomania) vs Adrian Moraru (PNL-USR)
Rating - safe ProRomania victory
This is another tricky one - Robert Negoita was originally a PSD member, however he was recruited by Ponta to run for his party, thus leaving PSD without any significant candidate in the District. The Mayor is very popular, thus he will easily win reelection.

District 4 Mayor - Mayor Daniel Baluta (PSD) vs Simona Spataru (USR-PNL)
Rating - likely PSD victory
The incumbent Mayor is relatively popular and his reelection is viewed as very likely, however the USR-PNL candidate does have a small chance of pulling an upset.

District 5 Mayor - Mayor Daniel Florea (PSD) vs Cristian Bacanu (PNL-USR) vs Marian Vanghelie (PSDI)
Rating - leaning towards a PSD victory
The Mayor is a pretty classical PSD politician (read arrogant and corrupt), however District 5 is probably the only PSD-friendly area in the entire city. He would probably have won in a landslide here, if not for Marian Vanghelie, another former Mayor who got arrested in office and now wants to win again. He is a symbol of grammar errors, or at least was until Dancila came around.

District 6 Mayor - Mayor Gabriel Mutu (PSD) vs Ciprian Ciucu (PNL-USR) vs Stefan Florescu (PMP)
Rating - pure tossup
This is probably the closest race in Bucharest and it will probably predict who ends up winning in the end. Ciprian Ciucu is a pretty well known politician and has the modern vibe that the right wing voters look for, however the incumbent Mayor is also pretty popular and the PMP here seems unusually strong. I would not dare making predictions.

The ratings will probably change before now and election day, however I hope you enjoyed this and now know the basics of the Bucharest races!

[RGM2609]

Good day everyone, it has been a while since my last update so today I will try to immerse you in the regular insanity that is happening in Romanian politics -

For starters, the Peoples Attorney Renate Weber continues her assault on any decency that is still left in this country. After she contributed decisively to the wave of COVID-19 infections that our country is dealing with right now because she got the Constitutional Court to rule any mandatory quarantine or isolation measures for infected patients but also managed to protected the huge pensions the MPs gave themselves, now she once again came out of nowhere demanding for asymptomatic patients to not be dealt with in any way (basically let them spread the virus freely). This has caused the well known PNL MEP Rares Bogdan to write a Facebook rant against her, calling her a horrific human being, an agent against the Romanian government, a filthy woman and a scum. While this language is not to be accepted, the incidents since Weber took over (and long before that) show the uselessness and ineffectiveness of the Peoples Attorney office, which has always been used by politicians to defend themselves from the rule of law and now Weber is literally trying to kill the people she is supposedly representing.

Meanwhile, the race in Bucharest is continuing to heat up, as the people will vote in nine days from now. In District 1, a race which in many ways has been even more visible then the one for the Bucharest Mayorship, the PSD Mayor seems to continue, for some unknown reason, to send thugs and local Policemen to harass his opponent. I think this will backfire on Election Day. While many Romanian villages are used to being led by little tyrants, I doubt the most liberal area of the biggest city in Romania will like it too much. However, COVID-19 is really putting every prediction in jeopardy.

Also the incumbent PSD Mayor Gabriela Firea and the challenger endorsed by USR-PNL Nicusor Dan seem to have agreed to attend a debate together following much chaos. It is expected to be quite an epic event, so I will be writing you an update as soon as it happens.

[RGM2609]

The 2 main candidates for Bucharest Mayor are still disagreeing on when and where to meet for a debate. While Dan proposed to have debates on the 22nd and 23rd of September, Firea demanded for her opponent to show that not only he is not infected with COVID-19...but also that he is not on drugs.

On another note, there are pretty extreme measures being taken this year related to the electoral procedures. While they are very good at preventing COVID-19 from spreading inside the poll stations, they are also likely to cause confusion and chaos among the population. It remains to be seen whether the turnout will be at record lows this year.

[RGM2609]

There has been a new poll ordered and published by PNL on the Bucharest race, showing Nicusor Dan (USR-PNL) narrowly ahead with 40% and Mayor Gabriela Firea in a close second with 37%. Former President Basescu is, according to the poll, in a distant third, with only 11%, and no other candidates get a significant number of votes. This poll seems in agreement with the trajectory of the race, however it shall be met with a healthy dose of skepticism given its source. Nonetheless, it had some furious contestants, including Basescu who in a barely coherent post on Facebook, accused PNL of cutting 10% off his real support in the poll, accused USR of being neomarxist, predicted that, in his words, a profoundly corrupt Mayor who has done nothing else than steal and lie is going to be re-elected, accused the right-wing parties of conspiring to kick PMP out of some alliance and much more. However, besides this ramble, he also made a serious threat that PMP might withdraw its support for the Orban Government if Firea is re-elected. This could open yet another government crisis weeks after we have avoided one.

A not so noticed fact is that the candidacy of ALDE leader and Former PM Tariceanu seems to be failing miserably despite considerable resources being thrown into it. It seems like his long, way too long political career is coming to an end this year, and he is taking his party down with him.

[RGM2609]

Something very important is happening today in Romania: a fight over a budget modification that PSD passed in Parliament. It is a very populist document which raises spendings in a dramatic fashion, the most important of its provisions being the raising of pensions by 40%, rather than 14% as it was planned. For those who don't know, spendings in Romania for the pension system are huge as it is, and such a raise would instantly throw the country into some kind of a default, only solvable by raising taxes on working people, cuts on public investments, massive borrowings or all 3. The fiscal situation is bad as it is given the pandemic.

Anyway, despite it passing Parliament with the votes of PSD+satellites+PRO+UDMR, the government has already contested it to the Constitutional Court, where it is likely to be cancelled. So this could very well be a plot to convince the pensioners to get out to vote at the local elections on Sunday, as there are grave concerns within PSD that fears of the pandemic will keep them home.

[RGM2609]

IMAS poll for the nationwide political vote -

PNL - 35%
PSD - 20%
USRPLUS - 17%
ProRomania - 10%
UDMR - 5%
PMP - 5%
ALDE - 3%
PPUSL - 2%

This new poll is sure to send shockwaves among PSD leaders and activists, however even if this is the result, it could be ignored by the media in favor of the race in Bucharest which will likely be much closer. But they sure hope for a better showing, as they need Mayors to get the people out to vote in December.

It will be interesting to see how many Mayorships does USRPLUS manage to obtain. They might not get too many, despite the potentially misleading percentage. The reason for that is that they are a younger party which has so far not built strong organizations and ground game necessary to win in rural areas and small towns, while in most big cities they are probably edged out by PNL by a bit, not to mention potentially popular Mayors from other parties. The result will probably be that their votes will be wasted and they will get few if any Mayors and Country Chairmen. (If PMP and ALDE get more, you will see how broken the Romanian electoral system truly is).

Likely result - Given how local this election is, it is impossible for me to predict over 3.000 races. However in most rural areas it will be either PSD or PNL, with smaller parties (PMP, ALDE) being unusually strong in some random places depending on their existent ground game. In the Szeklerland UDMR will dominate, and it will be interesting to watch it fight with PNL for some offices in Transylvania where there is a big Hungarian minority. The clearest thing is that PSD will lose and PNL will gain, but we will see by how much. In most cities in Transylvania PNL will rule, with the possible exception of Timisoara, while the fighting for urban areas in Moldova and Wallachia will be as brutal and complicated as usual.

Final update on Bucharest is likely coming tomorrow! Hopefully you did not find that prediction too vague, but this is the best I can come up with given the huge number of races...

[RGM2609]

On September 27th Romanians will go to the polls to elect their local representatives. While this involves thousands and thousands of individual races, as usual the attention of the nation and the media is focused on the fight for the Mayorship of Bucharest and its 6 districts. Here are the races with a brief summary and a rating -

Bucharest Mayor - Mayor Gabriela Firea (PSD) vs Nicusor Dan (USR-PNL) vs Traian Basescu (PMP)
Rating - leaning towards a Nicusor Dan victory
The fight for being the Mayor of Bucharest is an event even on itself and the trend for the crucial parliamentary election is often decided there. Given that Romania still uses the antiquated no-runoffs system to elect its local representatives, the main right wing parties, USR and PNL, had to unite to prevent victories by the PSD candidates solely because of the split in liberal votes. They selected Nicusor Dan, the founder of USR and a civic activist who is quite popular and well known in the city. He also ran in 2012 and 2016, and last time he got 30% of the vote as basically an independent. Normally Firea would lose in such a scenario, especially given her lack of performance, however she is being kept in the game by Former President Basescu, who has entered the race and is sure to take votes from Nicusor Dan, as well as by her relative charisma.

District 1 Mayor - Mayor Daniel Tudorache (PSD) vs Clotilde Armand (USR-PNL)
Rating - leaning towards an USR-PNL victory
This is yet another rematch from four years ago, with Clotilde Armand being an USR star who was actually born in France but lost to Tudorache in a very close (many say rigged) contest in 2016. As District 1 is the most liberal one in the city, if Tudorache gets reelected it is a signal that the rightists are not doing well at all. This is by far the most intense and well-known contest among the District ones as the Mayor keeps sending Policemen to stalk his opponent for whatever reason, and it is also pretty much a culture war, so whichever side wins will get a morale boost.

District 2 Mayor - Dan Cristian Popescu (PSD) vs Radu Mihaiu (USR-PNL) vs Niculai Ontanu (PPUSL)
Rating - leaning towards a PSD victory
This a rather complicated one so bear with me - the incumbent PSD mayor refused to run for another term, and PNL wanted to propose Dan Cristian Popescu, a well known politician who is not the cleanest however. USR refused to support him and thus Popescu did not have a party to run from, until Firea recruited him to run for PSD. The race is further complicated by the entrance of Niculai Ontanu, who led the District for decades before being arrested in 2016. While he is unlikely to win, he will probably take a lot of votes from the PSD candidate.

District 3 Mayor - Mayor Robert Negoita (ProRomania) vs Adrian Moraru (PNL-USR)
Rating - safe ProRomania victory
This is another tricky one - Robert Negoita was originally a PSD member, however he was recruited by Ponta to run for his party, thus leaving PSD without any significant candidate in the District. The Mayor is very popular, thus he will easily win reelection.

District 4 Mayor - Mayor Daniel Baluta (PSD) vs Simona Spataru (USR-PNL)
Rating - likely PSD victory
The incumbent Mayor is relatively popular and his reelection is viewed as very likely, however the USR-PNL candidate does have a small chance of pulling an upset.

District 5 Mayor - Mayor Daniel Florea (PSD) vs Cristian Bacanu (PNL-USR) vs Marian Vanghelie (PSDI)
Rating - leaning towards a PSD victory
The Mayor is a pretty classical PSD politician (read arrogant and corrupt), however District 5 is probably the only PSD-friendly area in the entire city. He would probably have won in a landslide here, if not for Marian Vanghelie, another former Mayor who got arrested in office and now wants to win again. He is a symbol of grammar errors, or at least was until Dancila came around.

District 6 Mayor - Mayor Gabriel Mutu (PSD) vs Ciprian Ciucu (PNL-USR) vs Stefan Florescu (PMP)
Rating - pure tossup
This is probably the closest race in Bucharest and it will probably predict who ends up winning in the end. Ciprian Ciucu is a pretty well known politician and has the modern vibe that the right wing voters look for, however the incumbent Mayor is also pretty popular and the PMP here seems unusually strong. I would not dare making predictions.

The ratings will probably change before now and election day, however I hope you enjoyed this and now know the basics of the Bucharest races!

These have been my ratings 2 weeks ago on all of the races in Bucharest. Now, I would like to change 2 of them (tbh there could be changes in other races as well but I chose only to write those which affect the forecasted winner) -

District 6 - change from tossup to leaning towards PNL-USR

Tbh this was a stretch from the start, however in recent weeks based on polls and mostly reports from the District it would seem like the liberal candidate has built an advantage over the PSD Mayor significant enough to reclassify the race. And now the elephant in the room -

Bucharest Mayor - change from lean PNL-USR to pure tossup

Yeah, this is pretty cowardly. However the candidacy of Traian Basescu has changed this race from a pretty safe target for the anti-PSD forces to a very close and fascinating race. Both Dan and Firea have ran good campaigns, mobilizing their core voters and were somewhat successful at their targets. However, there are some events that happened in the last week or so that are impossible to estimate as to their impact on the race. For starters, the more and more open endorsement of Nicusor Dan by President Iohannis, who has called the candidate to meet with him at the Cotroceni Pallace (the Presidency) and turned Presidential press events into opportunities to campaign for him. It could mobilize voters on either side, but my bet is that it will end up helping Firea more. Then, there is the almost unprecedented media assault by PSD on Nicusor Dan, who got accused on a daily basis on the biggest news stations in the country of various crimes. Especially Antena 3, owned by PSD oligarch Dan Voiculescu, stands out for its enthusiasm and trying to prosecute the right wing candidate without giving him the right to defend himself. Maybe I will write a post on how this Romanian Fox News works. Still, gun to my head, I would still say Firea will lose, but it is very close.

Remember, upsets happen. Do not take these predictions as a sure thing.

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Today was not a good day for Firea after a strong campaign. She was found guilty by the Electoral Commission to have paid for campaign ads from the budget of the city. As the Commission is not a court, she will not face consequences other than having to pull out the ads (irrelevant now) but USR has already announced that they will press charges against her in the judicial system, which could be a major headache even if she wins the election.

And an investigation by the independent organization Rise debunked a fake news promoted by Firea's Fox News, Antena 3, which invited an anonimous man to uncover new "evidence" against Firea's opponent. It turns out the man was a mobster involved in various schemes. This however has not stopped PSD  from promoting such lies. The Facebook feed of someone living in Bucharest is literally overwhelmed with articles cointaining baseless accusations and conspiracy theories about Nicusor Dan. The spending involved here must be enormous and what is even sadder, it is likely coming from the money of taxpayers too.

A race to which little attention has been paid by me here is Timisoara, probably the biggest chance of USRPLUS to win a Mayorship outside Bucharest. There is a tooth-and-nail fight between their candidate and the incumbent PNL Mayor, which has remarked himself through all-caps rants on Facebook and banning genres of music. Outside Bucharest, this is where the narrative about the results will mostly be formed (Constanta is also very important).

Anyway, this is actually my final update, because tommorrow will be my birthday and I won't be online, but I'll be back on Election Day.

[RGM2609]

The turnout at 10 AM, 3 hours after poll opening is 7.6%, higher than at the presidential in 2019 and similar to the one at the previous local election. In Bucharest however, the turnout seems to be somewhat higher at 6.1% than four years ago when it was at 4.4%.

While initially announced to vote at 10 AM, Firea rushed and went immediately after the polls opened at 7, seemingly in an effort to hide from angry citizens.

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The trends that were noticed at 10 AM in regards to the turnout continue - at 12 PM, 15.7% of the voters had already cast a ballot, a bit fewer than in 2016 at the same hour (16.5%). The drop was expected given the COVID-19 pandemic, but the turnout is still pretty high. In Bucharest the exact opposite thing is happening - at 12, the turnout was 12.1%, higher than four years ago (10.4%), showing that the race is at least more exciting.

[RGM2609]

Analyzing the turnout patterns in Bucharest, it would seem like Firea has some advantages. Namely - yes, the turnout is bigger than in 2016, however, in 2016 it was abysmal, and if the same trends continue, by the poll closings it will be at under 40%. And until 12 at least, most of the voters were old and more women voted than men. Those are voters who are more likely to vote for the incumbent. However, after 12, lines started to form, consisting of mostly young and middle aged persons, which is an advantage for the challenger. The risk for the right wing is that its electorate tends to vote later in the day, but may not get to express their preferences now as long lines form because of anti-COVID measures and the overall process is way slower.

[RGM2609]

At 3 PM, the turnout in Bucharest continues to be ahead of the one in 2016, at 21.2% compared to 18.2%, meaning about 60.000 additional voters. It would seem as if the race is very close, with both sides coming out to the polls in their expected numbers. It all comes down to how many anti-PSD voters go to the polls in the final 5-6 hours.

[RGM2609]

One hour and a half left to vote until the polls close! I will post the exit polls as soon as we get them, but I think the race for Bucharest is still very close while the right may perform better than expected at the District levels. Also USR seems to be winning in Timisoara, a race I have posted about a couple of days ago

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Exit poll CURS-Avangarde for Antena 3

Nicusor Dan - 47%
Gabriela Firea (PSD) - 39%
Traian Basescu (PMP) - 9%
Calin Popescu Tariceanu (ALDE) - 2%
Florin Calinescu (Greens) - 2%

Exit poll SOCIOPOL for Romania TV

Nicusor Dan - 45%
Gabriela Firea (PSD) - 44%
Traian Basescu (PMP) - 7%

District 1 -
CURS-Avangarde: Armand (USR) 47%, Tudorache (PSD) - 37%
Sociopol: Tudorache (PSD) 43%, Armand (USR) - 40%

District 2 -
CURS-Avangarde: Mihaiu (USR) 42%, Popescu (PSD) 31%
Sociopol - Mihaiu (USR) 36%, Popescu (PSD) 34%

District 3 -
CURS-Avangarde: Negoita (PRO) 39%, Moraru (PNL) 34%
Sociopol: Negoita (PRO) 48%, Moraru (PNL) 28%

District 4 -
CURS-Avangarde: Baluta (PSD) 55%, Spataru (USR) 37%
Sociopol: Baluta (PSD) 54%, Spataru (USR) 34%

District 5 -
C-A: Bacanu (PNL) 27%, Piedone (PPUSL) 27%, Florea (PSD) 24%
Sociopol: Florea (PSD) 25%, Bacanu (PNL) 25%

District 6 -
C-A: Ciucu (PNL) 48%, Mutu (PSD) 35%
Sociopol: Ciucu (PNL) 43%, Mutu (PSD) 40%

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Exit poll Curs-Avangarde in Constanta -

Stelian Ion (USR) - 29%
Virgil Chitac (PNL) - 29%
Mayor Decebal Fagadau (PSD) - 24%

Exit poll Curs-Avangarde in Craiova -

Lia Olguta Vasilescu (PSD) - 35%
Nicolae Giugea (PNL) - 29%
Antonie Solomon (Ecologists) - 18%

The result in Constanta particularly stands out as a disaster for PSD, as it was a race they thought it was competitive.