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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/11/romanias-left-takes-big-lead-in-parliamentary-election-exit-polls
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Romania's Social Democrats easily win parliamentary elections | Romania's Social Democrats easily win parliamentary elections |
(about 1 hour later) | |
Romania’s left-leaning Social Democrats have easily won parliamentary elections a year after a major anti-corruption drive forced the last socialist prime minister from power. | Romania’s left-leaning Social Democrats have easily won parliamentary elections a year after a major anti-corruption drive forced the last socialist prime minister from power. |
Election authorities said that with 99% of the votes from Sunday’s ballotcounted, the Social Democratic party had won 46% and the centre-right Liberals were second with around 20%. | |
Speaking on Sunday after exit polls showed similar results, the chairman of the Social Democrats, Liviu Dragnea, said: “There should be no doubt who won the elections. Romanians want to feel at home in their own country and I want Romania to be a good home for all Romanians.” | |
Dragnea got a two-year suspended prison sentence in April for election fraud for inflating voter numbers in a July 2012 referendum to impeach the then president, Traian Basescu. | |
Under a 2001 law, Dragnea is not allowed to be appointed prime minister because of the conviction, and last week he said the party would not try to change the law. | |
However, he told Romania TV on Monday that he had not ruled himself out as a future leader. | |
President Klaus Iohannis has said he will not nominate a prime minister who has been convicted or who is the subject of a corruption investigation. | |
Dragnea’s party has pushed a populist agenda, but on Sunday he sought to strike a conciliatory note, saying he wanted to end bitter divisions in the country. | |
The Save Romania Union, a new party that ran on an anti-corruption ticket, finished third, allowing it to enter parliament. A party needs 5% of the votes to enter the bicameral legislature. Votes for parties that do not make the threshold are redistributed. | |
Turnout for the election was 39.5%, more than two percentage points less than the 2012 parliamentary elections. | |
The former prime minister Victor Ponta, already the subject of a corruption investigation, resigned after mass protests following a nightclub fire in October 2015 that killed 64 people. Romania is currently run by a government of technocrats headed by the prime minister, Dacian Ciolos, a former European Union agriculture commissioner. | |
The country of about 19 million people is one of the poorest in the 28-member European Union and perceived as one of the most corrupt. |