At 8 p.m. local Romanian time, after 99,81% of the voting ballots have been counted, the results of the first round of the race for Romanian Presidency are the following: incumbent President Basescu (Democratic Liberal Party) 32,43%, Mircea Geoana (Social Democrat Party) 31,16% and Crin Antonescu (National Liberal Party) 20,02%. The other runners are not even worth mentioning, as all of them scored under 4%.
First official results were barely published, that both Basescu and Geoana proclaimed themselves as winners. A life or death battle is to be expected in the next two weeks between the…
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Recognizing that as a remote blogger it’s sometimes difficult to convey the on-the ground excitement and ‘feel’ of the 2009 electoral campaign, I took the time to run a short analysis of the online presence of the three main contenders in the race for Romania’s Presidency. Hopefully this will help enlighten some of our readers on the tone and content of the race.
First, a caveat: unlike in the US, where presidential campaigns seem to start ever earlier and cost exponentially more from season to season, in Romania, the campaign per se officially opens one month ahead of the first round of voting.…
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Following is a guest post by Jim Rosapepe, former US Ambassador to Romania (1998-2001)…
Leading a post-communist country isn’t easy in the best of times. In much of Central and Eastern Europe, power has alternated between parties regularly. That was the political culture the West championed for the almost five decades of the Cold War — the dynamism of democracy, not the stability of one party rule. But to some, the grass is always greener. Now the complaint in many Western capitals — and not a few corporate boardrooms — is that Romanian politics is TOO dynamic…
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With one week to go until the Romanian Presidential elections, the stake of the game is to secure a place in the second round. While current President Traian Basescu (Democratic Liberal Party, centre-right) is expected to qualify for the next phase of the elections, the name of his future opponent remains unknown.
From all the plethora of candidates that announced their bid for Presidency, just two have real chances to enter the second round alongside the current President. Mircea Geoana, Senate chair and leader of the largest Romanian party (Social Democratic Party, centre-left) and Cri…
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While Europe was busy marking the 20th anniversary of the Berlin wall with elaborate ceremonies and a symbolic procession of European and American political figures through the Brandenburg Gate, the mood in Romania was darkening. Twenty years after the bloodbath that marked the fall of communism, Romanians have been so hard hit by the recession and so disappointed by their politicians that few other than inconsolable parents stopped to remember the events and listen to the speeches.
(Historically, Romanians also have few reasons to join in the Berlin wall celebrations – the Romanian Rev…
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