President wanted: Romania repeats election
Following the cancellation of the first round of elections in November due to suspected fraud, Romanians will head to the polls again on Sunday to elect a new president. The list of candidates includes Crin Antonescu from the current governing coalition between the Social Democrats, Liberals and the Hungarian Party, George Simion from the right-wing nationalist AUR party, and Elena Lasconi from the liberal USR.
A country torn apart
Romanian society is more divided than ever before ahead of the election, Adevărul believes:
“These elections are strange, perhaps the strangest in history. They follow an election year in which votes were either combined or cancelled. What do those responsible deserve for this? Against what will the popular anger be directed next? A president has no magical powers, but he does have huge symbolic power. However, he can't change much on his own. Previous presidents have exceeded their powers in order to exert their influence in government and parliament. That is likely to happen in the future, too. ... But the elections will pass, we will stay. ... We're already more divided than ever before. How can we rediscover our fraternity?”
Simion won't get much further
The Romanian service of German broadcaster Deutsche Welle weighs up the chances of right-wing nationalist presidential candidate and AUR party leader George Simion:
“Other populist movements have appealing leaders, but George Simion has no charisma whatsoever. Just electoral tricks for deceiving the gullible and a knack for winning over those who are dissatisfied with the established parties. Right now the polls give him 30 percent of the vote, but it's hard to believe he'll be able to build on that even if he does make it to the second round. Simion is simply securing the same level of support as other extremists across Europe.”