On the Romanian parliamentary election of 2020

The Romanian parliamentary election of 6 December 2020 resulted in a remarkable shift towards the economically and socially conservative.

The Social Democrats (PSD) under Marcel Ciolacu (who did not become Prime Minister of Romania at any point, by the way) suffered a dramatic loss of support, dropping from 45.47% to just 29.24%, although they still finished top of the poll due to the opposition vote being heavily split. In fact by the time this election occurred, Romania had acquired a Prime Minister from the opposition National Liberals, Ludovic Orban (no relation to Hungarian PM Viktor Orban) due to the collapse of the PSD government, which resulted in some defections from PSD to the PNL, and to the Humanist Power Party. The previous PSD PM, Viorica Dancila, had lost the confidence of Romanian President Klaus Iohannis following numerous controversies over the Romanian embassy in Israel and a remark where she referred to some (neurotypical) MEPs as autistic simply because they "misinformed the EU" regarding the European Court of Justice. Although Mr Orban only headed a minority cabinet, he, alongside President Iohannis, proved effective at controlling the COVID-19 pandemic in Romania, even though many of the restrictions were as strict as most European approaches, although only a partial lockdown was ever implemented.

The PNL did gain as a result of this, but not as much as they hoped. Their vote share improved to 25.17%, meaning they mainly recovered the votes they had lost in 2016 under Alina Ghorghiu. Many of their more liberal-minded voters instead plumped for the 2020 USR-PLUS Alliance (formed from a merger of the liberal, pro-EU Save Romania Union and the Freedom, Unity and Solidarity Party) which finished a respectable third with 15.04%, although its focus on anti-corruption boosted its popularity as well, given how endemic corruption is in Romania by European standards. The Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania, a small c conservative party focusing on the rights of Hungarians in Romania, saw their support drop slightly to 5.82% but otherwise they maintained their standing in the Chamber of Deputies.

One of the biggest surprises was the nationalist right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR) finishing fourth, even though they were the only political party in Romania of significance to support Donald Trump, who last month decisively lost the US Presidential election to Joe Biden. They polled 8.99%, primarily gaining support amongst lapsed People's Movement Party and former Greater Romania Party supporters. Without former President Traian Baiescu at the helm, the PMP slipped below the 5% threshold, thus losing all its seats in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The PRO Romania Social Liberals also missed the 5% threshold in both cases. The pressing nature of the climate emergency has not led to green surges in Romania yet-the Ecologist Party of Romania polled only 1.11% and the Green Party of Romania 0.35% (the former is more socially and fiscally conservative than the latter), although in both cases this represents their best result so far competing as independent parties rather than as part of an alliance. 

Of the other parties, the Humanist Power Party, despite having MPs at the dissolution of the 2016-20 Romanian legislature, did not even come close to securing representation polling just 1.02% of the vote. The wooden spoon of this election went to the National Force Party, who polled a miserable 148 votes. Results for the Senate were relatively similar to those of the Chamber of Deputies.

By European standards and despite fair proportional representation, turnout in Romanian national elections is very poor, with the last legislative election to see a turnout above 50% having occurred as long ago as 2004. In this election, with the additional factor of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, turnout dropped to a record low of 29.68%, with many cities seeing not even a quarter of registered voters turn out to vote, meaning the PSD topped the poll with the support of less than 9% of all eligible voters in Romania. As it stands, Ludovic Orban is set to continue as Romanian PM, with the USR-PLUS Alliance almost certain to be a junior coalition partner.

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