THE PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN ROMANIA (9 DECEMBER 2012)
GR. P. POP1
1Babeş‐Bolyai University, Faculty of Geography, 400006, Cluj‐Napoca, Romania, e‐mail: grigor@geografie.ubbcluj.ro
ABSTRACT. – The Parliamentary Elections in Romania (9 December 2012). This study analyzes the main issues regarding the development and results of the 9 December 2012 parliamentary elections for the setting up of the Romanian Parliament (the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate) for the 2012‐2016 legislative period. There was a modest presence of the population at the elections, as the turnout was only 41.76% of the 18,423,066 people registered on the lists. Several political unions, alliances, parties and independents participated and the general electoral threshold was 5% for parties and 8% for alliances. As a result, only two political unions – the Social Liberal Union (SLU) and the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (DUHR), an alliance – Right Romania Alliance (RRA) and a party – People’s Party ‐ Dan Diaconescu (PP‐DD) succeeded to enter the Parliament. Out of the total number of votes given to these parties, the highest frequency had, by far, the Social Liberal Union (62.08% for the Chamber of Deputies and 62.15% for the Senate), followed in descending order by the Right Romania Alliance with 17.48% and 17.28% respectively, People’s Party – Dan Diaconescu with 14.82% and 15.15% respectively and the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania with 5.44% for the Chamber of Deputies and 5.42% for the Senate (table 1). As a consequence of these results, followed by the redistribution of the votes given to parties which had less than 5% of the electorate options, the final number of deputies and senators in the Romanian Parliament has been established as follows: 273 and 122 for SLU, 56 and 24 for RRA, 47 and 21 for PP‐DD, 18 and 9 for DUHR. Regarding the Chamber of Deputies, one should mention that 18 deputies of the national minorities were added to the 394 deputies of the parties which succeeded to enter the Parliament, according to the stipulations of the Electoral Law. Therefore, this chamber has 412 deputies (compared to 334 in the 2008‐2012 legislative period). The other legislative chamber, the Romanian Senate, comprises 176 senators (compared to 137 in the previous Parliamentary period). As a result, both chambers of the Romanian Parliament include 588 members (compared to only 471 between 2008 and 2012). Their territorial distribution is highlighted in the tables and figures of this study.