Parliamentary elections for the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies will be held in Romania on December 1. More than 10,000 people entered the race for a parliamentary seat in the 42 constituencies. 329 deputies and 136 senators are to be elected. Moldovans with Romanian citizenship can also vote in the December 1 elections, IPN reports.
RFE/RL’s Romanian Service said that most candidates for the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies – 639 – come from the Social Democratic Party (PSD). 636 people are running on behalf of the S.O.S Romania party, while 630 of the National Liberal Party (PNL).
The Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) has 621 candidates, the Force of the Right (FD) – 619, and the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) – 596. Another 589 candidates come from the Save Romania Union (USR).
A total of 31 political parties fielded candidates for senator and 50 for deputy. The vote is held based on party lists, in each county and in Bucharest.
"The Chamber of Deputies – the lower house of Parliament – has higher representation of the population – one MP per 73,000 inhabitants. The total is 329 deputies. The number of senators is smaller – 136, and the representation norm is one senator per 168,000 inhabitants," said RFE/RL’s Romanian Service.
In Romania, the electoral threshold for entering Parliament is set by law. For political parties, it is at least 5% of the valid votes cast at national level. For political alliances formed by two parties, the threshold is 8%, for alliances formed by three parties – 9%, and for alliances of four or more parties the threshold is 10%. An independent candidate must obtain a number of votes equal to the electoral coefficient in the constituency in which he or she is running (i.e. the total number of votes divided by the number of seats in that constituency).
The seats that remain unfilled after the elections (votes received by political parties and alliances that do not pass the electoral threshold) are redistributed to the parties that managed to enter Parliament.
At the elections for the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies on December 1, the same number of 59 polling stations established in the Republic of Moldova for the presidential election of Romania of November 24 will be kept.
