December 8 (SeeNews) - Romania on Sunday will hold regular general elections following a year of technocrat government.
A total of eleven parties with over 6,000 candidates will compete to enter the 466-seat bicameral parliament. Following legislative amendments adopted in June 2015, the number of MPs in the new parliament will decrease to 466 from 588 elected in 2012.
The main participants in the race are left-wing Social Democratic Party (PSD), led by former deputy prime minister Liviu Dragnea, and centre-right National Liberal Party (PNL), led by Alina Gorghiu.
Other major contenders are the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR), centre-right Popular Movement Party (PMP) and centre-right Save Romania Union (USR) party.
PSD is the biggest political force in Romania's current parliament with 194, followed by PNL with 165 seats. Centre-left National Union for Romania's Progress (UNPR), which allied with centre-right Popular Movement Party (PMP) in July, follows with 24 seats.
Out of 588 MPs originally elected in 2012, 512 remain in their seats. Many of the others were indicted on charges of corruption or abuse of office and had to end their mandates.
At the December 11 elections, Romanians will vote on lists compiled by political parties in a proportional representation system last used in 2004, as opposed to uni-nominal majority voting used in 2012.
For the first time Romanians abroad will be able to vote by sending their ballot papers through the postal office. Two years ago Romania's presidential elections were marred by poor organisation of voting abroad as the insufficient number of polling stations prevented many people from casting a ballot.
The country is divided into 43 election districts, which elect 466 members under a proportional representation system. Four of them will be elected by Romanian citizens living abroad.
The members of parliament are elected for a four-year term.
A total of 18,297,431 Romanian citizens are eligible to vote. A total of 8,889 Romanians living abroad have requested to vote by sending their ballots through the postal office.
At the beginning of 2016, Romania had a population of 19.7 million people, data from the country's statistics office INS showed.
The vote will be monitored by representatives of 180 domestic media organisations and of 42 non-profit organisations and foundations.
Polling stations will open at 0500 CET and close at 1900 CET.
The elections will cost 227 million lei, according to data from Romania's permanent electoral authority, AEP.
The vote will be the eighth general election in Romania since 1990, after Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown in December 1989.
A year ago, Romania witnessed the most massive street protests since the bloody overthrow of Ceausescu, which led to the replacement of prime minister and PSD leader Victor Ponta with technocrat head of government Dacian Ciolos.
In its Autumn 2016 Economic Forecast report published in November the European Commission raised its projection for Romania's GDP growth in 2016 to 5.2% from 4.2% projected in May citing rising household consumption backed by wage hikes.
Also in November, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) increased its projections for Romania's economic growth to 4.8% in 2016 and 3.7% in 2017.
Romania's annual consumer price deflation decelerated to 0.4% in October from 0.6% in September, INS data indicated.
Sources:
- State statistical office, INS
- Central Electoral Bureau, BEC
- Permanent Electoral Authority, AEP
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