Against all odds: Klaus Iohannis wins Romania's presidential election

Historic moment for Romania: Klaus Iohannis won Romania’s presidential elections defeating the favorite Victor Ponta and becoming the first representative of an ethnic minority to take the helm of Romania’s presidency. His victory is seen unanimously as a major surprise considering the results in the first round when he ranked behind the PSD-UNPR-PC candidate who had a 10 percent advance.

This time, the same difference was in favor of the mayor of Sibiu, according to the preliminary results released by BEC (the Central Electoral Bureau), Iohannis scoring 54.50 percent against Ponta’s 45.49 percent with 99.07 percent of the vote counted. Another major surprise was the turnout of over 64 percent, the highest since 1996, while in the first round held on November 2 it barely exceeded 53 percent.

“Dear Romanians, you have been heroes today. The voting process was phenomenal, an extraordinary turnout. Thank you for going to vote for the Romanian president”, declared Iohannis after the first exit-polls revealed a marginal advance against Ponta, albeit the current Prime Minister had the lead in all polls before elections.

Iohannis, who is ethnic German, has promoted a “normal” Romania where work is well done, which proved victorious on an increasing wave of hostility against Victor Ponta, especially amongst youngsters. 

Yesterday’s run-off revealed a different Romania, egger to vote and determined to stop PSD from expanding influence at presidential levels, many political analysts stressing out that the massive turnout and surprising scores are a result of the anti-PSD and anti-Ponta current which emerged even in areas in Moldova or Southern Romania, regions known to be under PSD’s control.

Anti-government protests were held in all major cities across the country in the last week, including on Sunday’s election, thousands of people asking for justice for Romanians abroad who were not able to vote again, due to poor organization of voting stations in London, Turin or Paris. Iohannis himself joined them last night in the University Plaza in Bucharest, the crowd cheering his success.

Victor Ponta congratulated his opponent, however, he stated that he is not considering stepping down as Prime Minister, without being asked by his PSD colleagues. Even so, his term could end prematurely, as several voices among PSD leaders impute the defeat to him and discuss about resignation.

In the first round, Ponta accounted for 40.33 of all votes, winning elections in most of the counties in Moldova, Muntenia and Oltenia regions, while Iohannis, with about 30.4 percent, obtained majority of the vote in counties within Transilvania and Banat regions. Not only the ACL candidate recovered the 10 percentage points in the run-off, but he also obtained more than 70 percent of the votes registered in some counties, such as Sibiu or Cluj.