BUCHAREST (Romania), December 1 (SeeNews) – The leader of opposition Social Democrats Mircea Geoana would win Romania's run-off presidential elections on Sunday with eight percentage points ahead of incumbent centrist Traian Basescu, a survey showed on Tuesday.
Geoana would with 54% of the vote compared with 46% for Basescu, the informal leader of governing Democratic-Liberal Party, the survey conducted by local INSOMAR polling agency indicated.
The survey of 11,971 respondents was conducted on November 28 and November 29. The margin of error in the poll was up to +/-3.0%, INSOMAR said.
Basescu, running for re-election, won 32.44% of the votes in the first round of the presidential vote held on November 22, short of the majority of over 50% needed for an outright victory. Geoana received 31.15% support. The leader of the National Liberal Party, Crin Antonescu, came third with 20.02%, followed by Corneliu Vadim Tudor, leader of nationalist PRM party, with 5.56%. Romanians were choosing among 12 candidates for president.
The run-off to be held on December 6 will be crucial for Romania. The winner will name the country's next prime minister who will have to restart key reforms of the economy and the justice system in order to win back the trust of international lenders, a key condition for the release of the next installments of a 20-billion euro bailout package led by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Last week, the Social Democrats, the Liberal Party and the Hungarian minority party UDMR concluded a political cooperation agreement to support Geoana in the run-off vote. The three opposition parties back the nomination of Klaus Johannis, the mayor of the town of Sibiu, for prime minister.
Basescu has announced he will seek no political alliance before the run-off vote.
The minority government of Prime Minister Emil Boc fell in a no-confidence vote in October and Basescu, who is banned by law to call early general elections in the last six months of his term, failed to push through parliament his nominations for a new prime minister. Parliament rejected Lucian Croitoru, an advisor to the central bank governor, and has delayed voting on Basescu's second nomination, Liviu Negoita, a mayor of one of the Bucharest districts.
Boc has carried on as leader of an interim cabinet unable to enact cuts in public spending and adopt a credible budget for next year. The political uncertainty made the IMF and the European Commission postpone the payment of the next installments of their loan package designed to support the country's recession-hit economy.