Romanian elections 2012: what can happen after it?

The Romanian politics was never easy at all. As an ex-communist country, the working of the democracy is quite difficult to keep, and the last 8 years were hard to keep some political order in that country.

In 2004 Traian Basescu was elected as president for the first time, being reelected in 2009. However, PM Victor Ponta managed to approve in the Parliament two Basescu's votes of no confidence and in both occasions the Constitutional Court supported Basescu. In the first time the Court adduced there were no proofs against Besascu which could motivate his impeachment, and the second time was in August 2012, when the Court declared null the referendum promoted by Ponta and reinstated Besascu in his presidential post.

Nevertheless, the ballot held on last Sunday shows a difficult political landscape for Romania from now on. Sunday's elections showed an overwhelming victory for the center-left alliance of PM Ponta, which had 59% of the seats of 452 seats, making him the principal contender to be elected. A center-right coalition linked to Besascu won just 16,5% of seats, with almost total of votes counting.

The two men cannot stand even to be in the same room with each other, according to aides, and the situation got worse after Ponta's last attempt to impeach Besascu.

On the other hand, it is Mr. Basescu who has the power to appoint a prime minister. And if he does not appoint Ponta, he might be in an unsustainable political situation and could be forced to resign.

Just to ilustrate this, I will use Comin Stan's statement: “Mr. Ponta’s coalition did so well because Romanians hate Mr. Basescu more than they hate Mr. Ponta, (...) “It would be irresponsible for Mr. Basescu not to appoint Ponta, but our president is quite unpredictable and loves scandal and war.”

Comin Stan is a leading Romanian broadcaster with Realitatea TV.