Official Start of Local Elections Campaign

The local elections of June 10th will consist of one voting round and the positions at stake are those of mayor, president of the County Council and local councilmen of 41 counties, of the city of Bucharest, over 300 towns and more than 2,500 communes.

Approximately one million young people who have reached majority during the present electoral cycle will vote for the first time in a local voting.

The main part in local campaigns presumably belongs to the candidates for mayor of a commune, town or municipality.

Adrian Moraru, the executive of the Institute of Public Policy, says that the reason for this is that voters expect mayors to solve any issues of local interest concerning sanitation, water-supplies, roads, transportation, public lighting or public safety.

“According to the law, all these are not normally approved by the mayor, but by the Local Council; so, in the end, the greatest power belongs to local councilmen, but the tradition in Romania is for local branch leaders to run for mayor and not for a position of local councilman or leader of the council majority; and the result of this overlapping of politics and administrative responsibilities is that, in Romania, all expectations are generally directed towards mayors.” Adrian Moraru, the executive of the Institute of Public Policy says.

For the first time, mayors will be elected in one voting round.

This voting system has already been applied in preceding elections for presidents of County Councils.

“The presidents of County Councils have created a personality for themselves in the context of impersonal institutions, as institutions ought to be. They have become personal institutions. It has been a step back instead of forward for Romania in the last few years; consequently, they have focused more on their own image and on the kind of policies which favor them and less on public policies and, yes, they have made efforts to make themselves popular, which does not mean that the quality of administration has improved, but rather that the presidents of County Councils have become political forces”, Cristian Pârvulescu, the presidents of Pro Democraţia, says.

The candidates for local or county councilman positions are either independent or nominated by a party.

Local or county councilman mandates are divided according to the number of votes that each party has obtained.

The order in which local or county councilman mandates are assigned is in accordance with the order of the candidates’ names on the list.

Translated by: Roxana-Andreea Dragu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University