Who won the first uninominal elections in Romania?

The PSD-PC (Social Democrat Party – Conservatory Party) Alliance is leading the democrat/liberals by a tiny margin, less than twenty-four hours after the exit polls had suggested that social/ democrats were leading PD-L (Liberal Democrat Party) by more than six percent. Therefore the PSD-PC Alliance got 33.99 percent of the votes for Senate, followed by PD-L, just 0.2 percent behind, after the counting of 92.73 percent of the ballots. PNL (National Liberal Party) got 8.49 percent, while UDMR (Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania), got 6.54 percent of the votes.

The other political parties, including the Greater Romania Party (PRM) and the New Generation Party (PNG) scored less than 5 percent, which will keep them out of the Parliament. As for the Chamber of Deputies, the PSD-PC Alliance got 33 percent of the ballots, followed by PD-L, 32.57 percent and PNL – 18.32 percent. UDMR got 6.29 percent of the votes. It is for the first time in the last eighteen years that Romanians voted people at the parliamentary elections instead of parties. Many of the future members of Parliament were elected directly, such as PSD leaders Mircea Geoana, Adrian Nastase and Miron Mitrea. Many of those who were elected directly are major surprises, because they had not made a name for themselves in politics. These people are fashion designer Oana Mizil, who got a deputy seat for Bucharest and Silviu Prigoana, from the Democrat-Liberal Party. At the same time, prominent party names lost in the uninominal ballot race: Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu, Transport Minister Ludovic Orban, PNL deputy Crin Antonescu, PD-L secretary general Vasile Blaga or PD-L executive secretary Elena Udrea. PNG leader George Becali and PRM leader Corneliu Vadim Tudor did not even manage to go beyond the 5 percent electoral threshold. The chairman of the Chamber of Deputies Bogdan Olteanu, one of the biggest supporters of the uninominal system only got 26.6 percent of the votes, ranking third in his college. In Bucharest, PNL got only 16 percent and is close to 19 percent countrywide.  What was the logic the Romanians applied when voting on Sunday? Did they vote the person or the party? “People generally voted for parties. I saw, while watching the news, that it was the strength of the party that prevailed in these elections – the party apparatus For those across the country that made it into the Parliament with 50 percent of the votes it was the party that the did the work for them. Surely these candidates were elected based on the uninominal system, but the party was behind them, knocking on every door. What mattered was the strength of the party out there,” says political analyst Stelian Tanase.