Romania at a crossroads

The left-wing nationalist, populist Social Democratic Party (PSD) won the most votes in Romania’s parliamentary elections on Sunday with 22 percent but lost a full 12 percentage points compared to the 2020 election. The “Allgemeine Deutsche Zeitung für Rumänien” posited that 3 of the 7 parties represented in parliament are aligned with the sovereignist movement that together received around 30 percent of Sunday’s votes. The election is also interesting from the point of view of national minorities.

The nationalist “Alliance for the Unification of Romanians” (AUR) came in second with 18 percent and was up 8.9 percentage points, followed by the National Liberal Party (PNL) who were down twelve percent to 13.2 percent. The conservative-liberal “Save Romania Union” (USR) came in at 12.4 percent, minus three from the previous election and the two extreme right-wing parties that stood for the first time, S.O.S. Romania received 7.4 percent and Partidul Oamenilor Tineri, The Youth Party (POT) garnered 6.5 percent.

The Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSz) won 6.3 percent of the vote, 0.6 percentage points more than four years ago. In the June EU election, the RMDSz won 6.5 percent of the vote, its best result in the last 20 years.

The RMDSz now holds 23 of the 330 seats in the new Chamber of Deputies, two more than four years ago. The distribution of seats in the Senate – Romania has a bicameral system –not yet known at 5 p.m. on December 3. In 2020, the RMDSz won 9 Senate seats.

In five of Romania’s 42 counties, the Hungarian Association is the strongest party in terms of votes: in Szatmárnémeti (Sathmar in German; Satu Mare in Romanian) and in Szilágy/Sălaj in northwest of Romania, as well as in the three counties of the Szeklerland in the northeast of Transylvania: in Maros (Mieresch in German, Mureş in Romanian), Hargita/Harghita and Kovaszna/Covasna. In the latter two, the RMDSz received 88 and 77.3 percent of the vote, respectively. 600,000 Hungarians live in the Szeklerland; they make up the majority of the population there.

Eighteen national minorities are officially recognized in Romania. The minority rights, which are quite comprehensive but completely insufficiently implemented, guarantee each of these minorities one seat in the Chamber of Deputies, even if they do not receive enough votes in the election to win a mandate of their own.

This is why Ovidiu Ganţ has a seat in parliament again. The Banat Swabian has been a member of the Chamber of Deputies for the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania since 2004. According to the latest census, 23,000 of Romania’s residents identified as German, compared to 36,000 in 2011.

Before a parliamentary election, every representative movement of a national minority must declare whether they want to take advantage of their guaranteed seat. If they do not want it because they expect to get more seats in free competition, they can also run for election without this safety net – but then they have to overcome a five percent hurdle. The RMDSz has done very well with this approach since the fall of communism in 1989, repeatedly winning up to 30 mandates in the Senate and the Chamber. However, it has often had to worry with the possibility of being left empty-handed, especially since there has at times been political competition within the minority, leading to the fragmentation of the Hungarian minority’s vote.

The demographic trend is also working against the Hungarian minority itself, whose population has been declining for many years and, according to the latest census, now sits at just over one million; in 1992, there were still over 1.6 million.

The RMDSz has been part of the governing coalition since 2020, initially with PNL and USR, then with PNL and PSD. In view of the election result, it is still completely unclear which parties could form a coalition to form the new government.

In the meantime, it is known that the entire presidential election will have to be repeated: on Friday afternoon, 6 December, the Romanian Constitutional Court annulled the first round and ordered a new election. Intelligence services had discovered interference in the election campaign. It is alleged that Georgescu was massively promoted via TikTok with the help of coordinated accounts, recommendation algorithms and paid advertising. Russia is believed to be behind this. A new election date has not yet been set. President Klaus Johannis, whose term would have expired on 21 December, will remain in office until a successor is sworn in, as allowed by the constitution, he said in a televised address on Friday evening.

Note: This article gives the views of the author and does not represent the position of the European Association of Daily Newspapers in Minority and Regional Languages (MIDAS) or Eurac Research.