Romania’s ruling National Liberal Party (PNL) received only 25% of the votes in the general election on December 6, a disappointing result that put it nearly 5pp below the rival Social Democratic Party (PSD). 

Despite coming second, the PNL is still likely to form a majority with the reformist USR-Plus bloc that took nearly 15% of the votes, and keep Prime Minister Ludovic Orban in office.

The leaders of the PNL expressed caution in their comments immediately after the exit polls, as the polls pictured a puzzling image with many parties close to the 5% threshold; those that fall below the threshold will have their votes distributed to larger parties. 

The preliminary results released later in the night, likely to see only minor changes after the votes from the diaspora are added, are supportive of a quick formation of a centre-right ruling coalition around PNL and USR-Plus. This is essential for efficiently addressing fiscal policy issues developed during the past year, when the Social Democrats controlled the parliament. 

“I am very confident in the Liberal National Party's ability to build a parliamentary majority alongside democratic forces to form a government in a short term. We need a responsible government that will be able to take advantage of all the opportunities enjoyed by Romania in the next four years,” said Orban, who leads the PNL, after polls closed. 

As USR-Plus also did worse than expected, that puts the PNL in a stronger position vis-a-vis its junior partner in the next government; USR-Plus is likely to tone down its ambition for nominating its own prime minister candidate. This will smooth the negotiation talks. In fact, USR's leader Dan Barna faces a delicate situation within his party due to the disappointing results. Nonetheless, the two would-be ruling partners might need the support of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) to reach a comfortable majority in both chambers of the parliament. The UDMR has already spoken in favour of “stability".

PSD leaders indicated they are also looking to form a government post-election, even though they would find it virtually impossible to put together a majority in the new parliament. 

“Romanians decided that PSD remains their main hope to bring #Romania out of the sanitary and economic crisis in which Orban and PNL took it!” the party said in a statement posted on its Facebook page. It strongly criticised the government’s handling of the pandemic in the run-up to the vote. 

“The president of Romania must understand the message of the vote and listen to the will of Romanians! Otherwise, his mandate and any government formula formed by Orban and the right-wing parties will be lacking legitimacy!” the statement added. 

Political newcomer AUR grabs voter support 

Against the background of a routine electoral campaign and a modest turnout of under 32%, the vote resulted in a political structure with some unexpected elements.

Firstly, a new party of self-declared nationalist orientation, the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR, meaning ‘gold’ in Romanian), emerged as a relevant player after winning over 8% of the votes. That could give it up to 10% of the seats after the redistribution of votes from parties that do not make it over the threshold to enter parliament. 

The party has gained momentum online within a short period of time, while maintaining a low profile, including in traditional media. Such online campaigns are expensive and the financing of the party remains unclear.

The exit-polls put AUR at slightly over 5%, which prompted reactions from the analysts, but the preliminary count of the vote revealed a much stronger score. AUR is going to be the fourth-biggest party by the number of MPs.

AUR was founded in September 2019 by George Simion, known as the founder of the Action 2012 platform that advocates for the union of Romania with the Republic of Moldova. Its ideology can be traced to the ideas promoted by Kremlin strategist Aleksandr Dugin. George Simion and his Action 2012 promoted radical actions for the unification of Romania and Moldova, but he severely criticised all the pro-EU parties in Moldova.

Co-president of AUR party is Claudiu Tarziu, who served for a time as a leader of the Coalition for Family and spearheaded the (failed) referendum “for the traditional family” of October 2018 in Romania. Its instigators aimed to change the Romanian constitution to rule out gay marriage. 

A second surprise of the December 6 elections in Romania is that, based on the preliminary results, neither the PMP party led by former president Taian Basescu nor former prime minister Victor Ponta’s Pro Romania met the 5% electoral threshold.

This keeps the number of parties in Romania’s parliament down to only five: PSD, PNL, USR-Plus, AUR and UDMR. The redistribution of the votes received by PMP, Pro Romania and other smaller parties might bring the coalition of PNL and USR-Plus close to forming a 50% majority by themselves, making the support of UDMR optional.