The first round of presidential elections form 22nd of November offered a pleasant surprise, the participation being higher than in last two years elections, when dropped until ca. 27%.

Sunday, the presence of 53,5% of voters for presidential elections and 50,2% voters for the referendum seems to legitimate the political leaders. As usual in elections in Romania, in rural areas the presence was higher (56,3%) than in urban ones (51,5%).

The results show the same order that everybody expected:

1. President Traian Basescu (Democrat-Liberals) 32,4%

4. Other nine candidates 16,4%

In the final round from 6th of December will compete Traian Basescu and Mircea Geoana.

Immediately after the final results were published, Tuesday, the parliamentary coalition who suspended Traian Basescu in 2007 and dismissed the Government in October, announced that their parties will support Mircea Geoana for this round. They signed a protocol by which after Micea Geoana will be elected as president he will nominate Klaus Johannis as Prime-Minister.

Traian Basescu is supported only by his own party on political scene and he claims that the population votes are not in the pocket of the parties’ leaders and people are rational. We shall se if he is right.

On the other hand, the referendum that he organized was a victory for him, the two questions being largely approved by population.

1. Do you agree with the shift to a unicameral Parliament in Romania? – YES – 77,8%.

2. Do you agree reducing the number of Parliament members to less than 300 people? – YES – 88,8%.

This can help Traian Basescu for the second round, but being only consultative questions, probably the Parliament will not consider discussing the Constitution change if he will not be elected.

The campaign for the second round started two days ago, with a “dirty” movie similar to those used in American campaigns (Basescu hit a child). In this short sequence Traian Basescu seems to hit a young boy, in a meeting five years ago, in the previous campaign. It is doubtful that, if this video is real, nobody discussed about this for 5 years and his greatest declared enemy, Dinu Patriciu kept the movie so long without talking about it. Now the child is in Italy together with his family and their declarations are contradictory.