Constitutional Court validates election results in the first round. Election campaign to resume

The Romanian Constitutional Court today validated the results registered in the first round of 2014 presidential election, confirming the voter turnout of 53.17 and the scores of the 14 candidates as announced by the Central Electoral Office (BEC). Thus, Victor Ponta, the candidate supported by PSD-UNPR-PC alliance and winner of this first round, and Klaus Iohannis from ACL will compete in the run-off for a five-year term at the Cotroceni office.

The Court has reaffirmed the date of the second round of presidential election: Sunday, November 16, 2014.

As this decision is expected to be displayed in Romania’s Official Gazette shortly, after its publication, the election campaign will be resumed.

For the run-off, the Prime Minister will benefit from additional support from behalf of two of the losing contenders in the first round: Dan Diaconescu, who is at the helm of PPDD and Corneliu Vadim-Tudor, the PRM leader. Although expected to join the left-wing side, UDMR announced that they will not sustain Ponta officially, as they cannot be in the same boat as PRM, so they advised their voters to vote the candidate that they find representative.

On the other hand, Iohannis, who is still the Mayor of Sibiu, declared that he is not willing to establish any such provisory alliance and that he wishes to win the elections by himself. Yet, Monica Macovei, announced publicly that she will support Iohannis in the run-off, after he had asserted that as president he will protect the rule of law, the justice system and that he will not release and pardon corruption convicts.

Victor Ponta won the first round of Romanian presidential election held on November 2, scoring 40.44 percent, followed by Klaus Iohannis, the ACL’s leader, who obtained 30.37 of the registered vote. Ponta has won election in most of the counties in Moldova, Muntenia and Oltenia regions, while Iohannis has obtained majority of the vote registered in counties within Transilvania and Banat regions, as well as in the Romanian diaspora.