Political polling

It was inevitable that the prolonged economic and social crisis in Romania would start to have a political knock-on effect.

On Thursday, the results from the most recent opinion poll show that over 40% of Romanians say they will not vote, or say that they don’t know who to vote for.

Those who say they are decided regarding who they’ll be giving their vote to seem determined to punish the politicians currently in power.

The poll was run by the Institute for Public Policy, an NGO that is said to have a favorable attitude towards the government. In spite of this, the poll shows the main party in the coalition and government, the Liberal Democratic Party, falling sharply behind its main contenders, the Social Democrats and the National Liberals.

The Social Democratic Party is the party of choice for 40% of respondents, the National Liberal Party by 26%, way ahead of the party now in government.

The Liberal Democrats now have a humiliating 12% of prospective voters on their side, down from the 33% they had in 2008. The junior partners in the coalition, the independents and the Ethnic Hungarian Union, have 7 and 5% respectively.

The far right Greater Romania Party, who in the last elections couldn’t make it past the 5% threshold needed to make it into Parliament, is now expected to get 7%. President Traian Basescu, the de facto leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, has dropped rather far behind.

At this point, only 19% of voters seem to think he is able to lead the country, even though he’s only half a year into his second term. His opponents in those elections, Liberal Crin Antonescu and Social Democrat Mircea Geoană have a crushing lead on him: they have levels of support of 43% and 32% respectively. Even worse, if a new referendum were held to dismiss Băsescu as president, 65% of respondents in the poll said they would vote yes.

The daily Gândul is taking a rather non-partisan line, commenting that, quote, “Basescu and the Liberal Democratic Party are crashing together”, while the daily Jurnalul Naţional, fiercely anti-presidential, rejoiced at the news that a new referendum would see Băsescu lose the presidency.

Much more lenient towards those in power, the daily România Liberă tries to explain in no kind terms how the Liberal Democrats reached this low point.

The analysts quoted in that paper state that the reasons for dissatisfaction include “delays in restructuring the administration, excessive political power-mongering, but mainly Băsescu’s announcement on May 6th that salaries and pensions were going to be cut”.

This is in addition to what was described as chaotic political communication, with members of the Government coming out in public with disjointed and contradictory messages.

As for the president’s plummeting popularity, some newspapers claim that it is because of his ambition to take on the prime minister’s role in addition to his own.

Since Prime Minister Emil Boc does not seem to have initiatives in opposition to the presidency, analysts claim that his unpopularity is a reflection of the government’s.