Romania’s pro-EU president set for re-election

Romanians yesterday started voting in the second round of presidential elections that are expected to return Klaus Iohannis to office, confirming the pro-European trajectory of the eastern EU member.

Thirty years after the fall of communism, the centre-right former physics professor is running against Social Democrats (PSD) leader and former prime minister Viorica Dancila, whose government fell last month in a no-confidence vote.

In a first round of voting on November 10, incumbent Iohannis gained 38 percent of the vote, ahead of 13 other candidates. Dancila came second with 22 percent.

Analysts say voters who backed lower-placed candidates can be expected to largely swing behind Iohannis, amid deep resentment towards the PSD over controversial judicial reforms.

“I voted for a Romania that is modern, European and normal,” Iohannis told reporters after casting his ballot.

A total of 18.2 million Romanians are eligible to vote with a record 650,000 of them abroad.

Those abroad, who tend to favour liberal candidates, have three days to cast their ballots so by early yesterday, 400,000 of them had already voted, up a third compared to the first round.

In the first round, just three percent of them voted Dancila.

The PSD government had engaged in a long battle with Brussels -- and Iohannis who backed the EU -- over allegations it was trying to push through measures to neuter the judiciary and benefit PSD politicians.

The left-wing party is seen as the successor of the elite which dominated the country before the overthrow of communism in 1989 and is accused of harbouring corruption in its ranks.

And while nationalism has been less present in Romanian politics than elsewhere in the region, such as in Hungary or Poland, the PSD also tried to frame its clashes with European Union institutions as evidence that the party was standing up for Romania.