Romanian Parliamentary Election, 11 December 2016

[Beagle]

The election is on Sunday. While it is virtually certain the PSD will be the largest party, there is a lot of suspense which parties hovering around the 5% threshold actually make it into parliament. Polls are showing ALDE, PMP, UDMR and PRU (another Romanian iteration of the pro-Russian nationalist parties that seem to proliferate in the Balkans) either just making it or falling just short.

Chances are that the PSD+ALDE will have enough seats to govern alone. In that case, Dragnea is the likeliest PM, but another possible candidate is Senator Eugen Teodorovici, who was Minister of European Funds and Minister of Finance in the Ponta cabinet. In the likely scenario the socialists have the most seats, but neither they, nor the PNL+USR coalition can form a government, it's quite possible that Florin Georgescu - a former Ponta deputy and Finance Minister, who is currently deputy governor of the central bank - will be asked to form a technocratic government.

[Beagle]

Low turnout favors the PSD and the leaked exit polls (to be taken with a truckload of salt) seem to confirm this:
PSD – 45%
PNL – 21%
USR – 14%
ALDE – 5%
UDMR –5*%
PMP – 4%
PRU – 3%
* will be over the threshold anyway due to having 20+% in 4 constituencies

Still, it's unlikely the PSD will get to 50%, which means that the president will not be obliged to name their nominee as PM. And since Johannis has stated innumerable times that he will not give the mandate to anybody who's been convicted or indicted for corruption, Dragnea probably will not be PM.

[Beagle]

Romania exit polls:

PSD - 45,8

PNL - 20,8

USR - 9,30

ALDE - 6,90

PMP - 4,7

UDMR - 6,7

That's the Ires - the PSD house pollster, who were also projecting a Ponta victory at this time two years ago.  The pollster closer to the PNL has
PSD – 42,3%

PNL – 19,2%

USR – 10,1%

ALDE – 6%

UDMR – 5,4%

PMP – 5,2%

PRU – 4,5%

Btw, there doesn't appear to be a Macedonian elections thread. Not that there are any exit polls there, but in about half an hour, the first preliminary results should be posted. According to twitter, the opposition seems to be winning Skopje, but there does not appear to be much info about elsewhere.

[Beagle]

What is the name of said pollster?

Sociopol, the pollster of România TV.

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Yep, looks that way, but since there isn't much to discuss re:Romania, I just thought I'd post the Macedonian info as well.

[Beagle]

What?? The guy wins a huge majority and isn't certain he will not become PM?? That's ridiculous!

PS: I'm not really informed about Romania politics but i don't think there's a "clean" politician in Romania. Just saying.

<hack> 83-85% of all eligible voters did not vote for the PSD -> Dragnea has no mandate </hack>

But seriously, both Johannis and the PSD have dug their heels in and it looks like Romania is heading to another period of President-Parliament gridlock. Still, it's what they voted for.

As to the cleanliness of Romanian politicians - I certainly can not name any "clean" Romanian politician, but there are degrees of corruption and it's wrong to say they're all the same, IMO.

[Beagle]

Didn't realised turnout was that low! One question, who was more executive powers in Romania, the President or the PM? In the EU councils i usually see the President.

AFAIK, the President has a fair bit of power in appointments and in foreign affairs, but the executive power lies with the PM. But if anybody is more knowledgeable, feel free to correct me. Currently Gorghiu (the PNL leader) is under pressure to step down tonight, and even Basescu is saying that the results are clear and the PSD-ALDE are the winners, so it's not like the politicians are seeing something different from what the exit polls say.

[Beagle]

The electoral commission has been releasing results steadily every 15 mins... in csv form. Since no Romanian media that I am aware of is compiling these, I have no idea what the results show, but if someone is eager enough, they can delve in - even going precinct by precinct if they so wish.

[Beagle]

Yay, ProTV are compiling and seem to be updating reasonably fast.

Results with 42% in:

PSD : 46.8%
PNL : 20.5%
UDMR 8%
USR : 6.4%
ALDE : 5.3%
PMP : 4.7%

Quite a difference for USR/UDMR, but it seems to me that it's simply the more rural / Hungarian areas reporting first. And it appears quite likely the PMP will be below the 5% threshold in Romania itself, but will manage to get in on the strength of votes from abroad - mostly from Moldova.

[Beagle]

The abstention rate means that PSD are winning on the strength of 3.3 million votes - half a million less than Ponta got in the first round in the Presidential race 2 years ago. As a reminder, Johannis won the second round with 6.3 million to Ponta's 5.2. In the upcoming posturing over who gets to be PM, I expect Johannis to refer to these numbers a lot.

Turnout among the 18-30 year olds is really catastrophically low. I'm not comparing it to the presidentials, which had a different dynamic, but even in comparison to the 2012 election, it has dropped by almost half. Obviously the Romanian parties are not giving much reason to vote for them, but my impression is that they have become cleaner compared to 4 years ago. My only explanation is that in 2012 people just suspected the corruption of their ruling class, and now they see the evidence brought to light.

In any event, the PSD are winning places they have not won in 25 years, Iliescu's 2000 second round romp excluded. Due to the electoral system, they will also have a pretty strong majority on their own in the Senate (winning an absolute majority in 22 of the regions), but will require ALDE in the lower house. The early talks seem to suggest they are looking to bring the UDMR in the coalition as well, probably to give even more legitimacy to Dragnea's claim to become PM.

[Beagle]

Is there good enough polling to know who 18-34 year olds generally support?

I guess 'good enough' makes it difficult to respond. For the last few elections only ISOR have released breakdowns of their exit polls by age/qualification. According to them, the parliamentary election saw a marked departure from the usual dominance of the PNL among younger voters. But as recently as the locals earlier this year, the winning PSD candidate in Bucharest was running a distant third with 18-34 year olds, who were the strongest supporters of the USR.

[Beagle]

This is the case in a lot of conturies. It depends on the demographics of such a society and contury, and what they grew up. Age, gender, race go with all of that.  Yes, PSD is more left-wing, to say otherwise is absurd.

The PSD is most definitely left-wing - but not 'progressive' in any sense of the term as it used these days.

[Beagle]

Did she work under that one long-time mayor of Constanta who was super weird?

No, she worked as an IT director for the region-wide county council, not the municipal government.

I don't think I saw Shhaideh mentioned anywhere on the lists of potential PMs before and after the election. Needless to say, she's a surprising choice that is bound to cause some consternation in the PSD.  She's an administrator, who's never held a directly elected position, and while she's apparently been a competent project manager, nobody is seeing her as anything other than a pawn for Dragnea. He was witness ('best man') to her second marriage to a Syrian engineer working for the county government and her appointment as minister was seen as a sign of Dragnea prevailing over Ponta in the PSD internal battles. Ponta's faction is definitely unhappy with this choice from what I gather.