These days Romania’s enjoying the full swing of an electoral campaign. Presidential elections will be held on November 22nd together with a referendum concerning the reducing the number of elected parliamentarians from 471 to 300 and moving from a two chamber system to a unicameral one given that the powers of the two houses are nowadays largely similar and the bicameral system has led to legislative gridlock in the past. There are 12 candidates for the seat of president but only three of them have real chances. It is not expected that anyone will get majority in the first round and we’ll probably have to go to vote again on December 6th. The city is full of advertisement related to the campaign. The smiling guy that appears in my photograph is the incumbent, our current president, Traian Băsescu, who is running for reelection. A former ship captain, Minister of Transport and Mayor of Bucharest, he is a somewhat controversial figure in Romania. People either love him or hate his guts and nobody remains indifferent. The opponent closest in the polls is the Social Democratic Party candidate, Mircea Geoană, former Foreign Minister of Romania and former ambassador to the United States.
Nov 142009
Just for the record, he's not a little person — the aspect ratio is just wrong. But nobody gives a rat's ass about aspect ratios in Romania. The common perception is "I paid for all these pixels and you better light them up".
🙂
I find it interesting that you'll probably have a runoff election. At the moment in Canada we have a minority government. As long as members of other parties go along with the minority, it will stay in power.
According to the Romanian constitution the two-round system is used to elect the president. In order to win, a candidate needs to have at least 50% of the votes. At this moment Romania has three major parties, and all three have their own candidate for presidency so the voters are split and nobody will probably get 50% on the first round. The second round would be between the two candidates who got the most votes in the first round. At this moment I (and almost anyone else) have no idea who's going to win. The president can rule over a minority government, as long as everybody gets along, like you said.
With this strange shirt he looks like the leader of a religious cult.
It is always easier to like a foreign leader, we know ours too much. Ship captain sounds good to me, but I know nothing about him! Trying to reduce the number of members of Parliament is a bold move, here they are talking about it since I was a student… I hope you'll keep us posted about what seems to be a very important moment of change in your country, if everything goes as planned!
P.S. – Catalin is right, the ratio is very funny!
Hehe, this gentleman has rather long arms. Maybe that helps him to stay in power. (; Anyway, I hope you will get the best president possible, although I have little hope that this sort of true representative of the people even exists.