Bucharest: Romanian voters cast ballots for a new parliament on Sunday, shortly after the dark horse independent candidate Calin Georgescu’s lead in the first round of the presidential election. More than 18 million Romanian citizens, including those living abroad, participated in the electoral process to fill 332 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 137 in the Senate.
According to Namibia Press Agency, a total of 18,968 polling stations across Romania’s 42 constituencies opened at 7:00 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) and were scheduled to close at 9:00 p.m. (1900 GMT). Additionally, 950 polling stations abroad were operational over the weekend, on both Saturday and Sunday. By Sunday morning at 7:00 a.m., 170,094 diaspora voters had cast their ballots, nearly doubling the turnout at the same time in 2020, as reported by the Permanent Electoral Authority’s real-time data.
Over 8,000 candidates from 31 political parties, alliances, and 19 national minority organizations contested the election. Major parties in the
race include the Social Democratic Party, SOS Romania, National Liberal Party, Alliance for the Union of Romanians, Right Force, Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania, and Save Romania Union. To secure parliamentary representation, parties must obtain at least 5 percent of the national vote or over 20 percent in at least four constituencies.
This legislative vote occurs between two rounds of the presidential election, following an unprecedented Constitutional Court order for the Central Electoral Bureau to recount the first round’s votes.