Description of Electoral System:

(courtesy of IFES election guide)

The President is elected by popular vote to serve a 5-year term. In the Senate (Senat), 137 members are elected by popular vote via proportional representation to serve 4-year terms. In the Chamber of Deputies (Adunarea Deputatilor), 332 members are elected by popular vote via proportional representation to serve 4-year terms. 

Electoral Systems Snapshot

(Courtesy of International IDEA)

*Click on links for definitions

WANT MORE ELECTION RELATED STATS FOR ROMANIA? Go to "election databases" on the left-hand menu of this page OR comparative data on the right-hand menu and choose your area of interest.

Recent elections

Presidential Elections - 2009

The 2009 presidential elections in Romania took place in two rounds. In the first round, held on the 22th November, 12 candidates were running in the election. 3 candidates run as independents. The runoff round between Traian Băsescu of the PDL (Democratic Liberal Party) and Mircea Geoană (PSD, Social Democrats) was held on the 6th December 2009.

Although exit polls had predicted victory for Social Democrat former Foreign Minister Mircea Geoană, official results showed that Băsescu won with a margin of less than 1% (50.33%).

Even though election observers from OSCE stated that voting had generally met with the necessary commitments made, they urged authorities to investigate reports of irregularities.

The opposition has decided to contest the result, claiming that election was rigged and Social Democrats are able to submit evidence of electoral fraud. Finally, on the 14th December after recounting the entire annulled vote the Constitutional Court rejected the complaint and declared President Traian Băsescu the official victor.

Detailed results can be found here.
 

Past Elections

Parliamentary Elections - 2008

Legislative elections were held on 30 November, 2008 in Romania. A total of 18.3 million Romanians were eligible to vote in the elections on which voters were allowed to cast their ballots directly for specific candidates rather than for a political party, the first time. For more information please click here and read the latest news on the right-hand side of this portal.

European Parliament elections - 2007

Romania elected its members of the European Parliament for the first time on 25 November 2007. The EP election was initially scheduled for 13 May, but the Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu postponed it for domestic political reasons. Turnout was less than 30%. For election results, please click here.

For information in Romanian language, please visit the website of the Permanent Electoral Authority.

Referendum - 2007

A referendum on changing the voting system to single-member voting was held on 25 November 2007, the same day as the European Parliamentary. The precise question was:

Do you agree that, beginning with the next elections that will be held for the Romanian Parliament, all deputies and senators be elected in single-member constituencies, based on a majority vote in two rounds?

According to preliminary results, turnout was 26%, meaning that even though 89% of voters were in favour of the proposal, the referendum is invalid.

For information in Romanian language, please visit the website of the Permanent Electoral Authority.

Presidential & Parliamentary elections - 2004

(Courtesy of Wikipedia)

Ballots are cast separately for the President, the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. The Romanian electoral law requires a political party to receive 5% of the valid cast ballots in order to gain seats in the Parliament. For political alliances the percentage depends on the number of parties in the alliance. In 2004 there were three alliances, all of them composed of two parties: the "Uniunea Naţionalǎ PSD+PUR", the "Alianţa Dreptate şi Adevǎr PNL-PD", and the "Alianţa Popular Creştin Democratǎ". The percentage required for two-party alliances is 9%. For the presidential election, if no candidate receives more than 50% of the cast ballots, a run-off between the first two candidates is organized two weeks after the election date.

For preliminary analysis on Presidential & Parliamentary elections, prepared by the Robert Schuman Foundation, click here. Results of the Presidential elections are here and of the Parliamentary elections are found here. Analysis and results of both are here.