Political clouds hover in Romania after election & run-off vote looms

The votes have been counted in Sunday's Romanian parliamentary elections with the Social democratic party (PSD) of the incumbent PM Marcel Ciolacu winning most votes with around 22 percent. 

Their political opponents the Alliance of the Union of Romanians (AUR) secured just over 18 percent. Following were the PNL and USR parties with over 14 and 12 percent respectively. 

With no party winning a clear majority, Romania is facing a a period of political uncertainty, ahead of a very significant and highly contested second round of  the presidential election, that might happen next Sunday, pending a final ruling of the Constitutional court due on Tuesday.

When the first results came out, supporters were quite happy at the AUR headquarters. Their leader George Simion declared the results showed a win for them.

"The Romanian people voted overwhelmingly for the sovereignist forces and more than we wanted since the establishment of AUR exactly five years ago," Simion said. 

"The PSD and PNL have been removed from a majority government by the vote of the Romanians. We thank the Romanians for their vote!"

On the other side of the political spectrum, in the headquarters of the ruling PSD party, the atmosphere was more subdued. They understood that regardless of them coming out as a winners, it will be very difficult to create a new coalition government without some heavy concessions.

But the main focus of all political parties at these elections was actually round two of the presidential elections. 

The parties are deeply divided on this issue. Some supporting an independent, sovereignist candidate Calin Georgescu, and others pro-EU hardliner from USR Elena Lasconi. 

There is fear among the USR supporters that having three elections in two weeks might work against their candidate. They say that there should have been time between the parliamentary and presidential elections, as Alina Girbea an USR activist from Timisoara told us

"I think it was about experiment from the side of the government to hold a parliamentary elections between the two rounds of the presidential elections, because it creates a lot of confusion and chaos and parliamentary elections deserve much more debate," she said.

Gorgescu's anti-NATO and anti-EU stance was broadly reflected in the parliamentary vote, with both the presidential and parliamentary results highlighting deep political divisions. 

The second round of the presidential election is most likely just going to deepen that division.