Election update.

If you’re sick of hearing about the HUGE CHANGES after the US midterm elections, why not indulge your secret interest in a different country’s elections? Say, Romania’s? You know you want to.

Anyways. The first round of elections is over for now! We only had to look at candidates’ faces for a month before this election (sorry, US residents). The Monday after the election, the posters came down—at least the ones whose candidates didn’t make it to the RUNOFF.

So, on the 2^nd, Victor Ponta won 40.44% of the vote and Klaus Iohannis won 30.37%. The next four candidates won 5-3% each.  In case you didn’t read Kelly’s previous post, Ponta is the current prime minister and the leader of the Social Democrats Party (PSD), which is the old Romanian Communist Party.  Iohannis is ethnically German and the current mayor of Sibiu, one of Romania’s coolest cities (in our opinion).  In Lupeni, Ponta won 55%, and Iohannis 15.43% (the mayor is in Ponta's party and they like to do these somber marches through the city at election time).  In our county, Hunedoara, Ponta won 43.59% and Iohannis 31.64%.  Hunedoara was the only county in Transylvania where Ponta won the vote.

What we hear about Ponta is that he buys votes (take a picture of your ballot with a vote for him and his party sends you 50 lei), plagiarized 85 pages of his doctoral thesis, and that his gang controls governmental decisions through money and threats.  One of our friends keeps posting these sorts of incriminating things on facebook.  Her latest was a letter written by some local Orthodox priests that was posted around cities south of Bucharest asking voters to “vote with God in their hearts and minds… for Victor Ponta, because only he supports the church, not the ‘lifta străină,’ Iohannis!”  Apparently “lifta străină” is a fairly negative Orthodox term for someone of another faith.  Kind of like saying, “Don’t vote for that Lutheran dog who also happens to be a foreigner, Iohannis."  Great stuff.

What we’ve heard about Iohannis is that he’s German, so that's an interesting twist (Romania has a history of pretty good kings from Germany), but that he owns 6 houses that he says he bought using money he made by tutoring (he’s also a physics teacher), not by stealing government money.  When asked why no other teacher makes enough money to buy 6 houses, he apparently responded, “Tough luck.”  Uh-oh.

Most of our friends voted for Iohannis because they think he represents a change in the status quo and that even if he’s not a perfect candidate, he’s better than Ponta and the PSD.  But they think Ponta will win.  He has the Orthodox church’s support, he has the poor voters’ support, and a majority in Parliament.  Iohannis has the young, educated vote and an optimistic campaign (his slogans: “Yes, we can!” and “A Romania of things well done.”)

We were just in Timișoara, the university city where the revolution of 1989 began, and saw a demonstration against Ponta.  It was a bit crazy to see a crowd standing in front of the opera house yelling "Jos Ponta, jos Ponta!" (down with Ponta), in the same place where even more people had yelled, "Jos Ceaușescu!" 25 years before.  A guy asked me if I knew what was going on, and when I told him that I didn't really want Ponta to be president, he asked me to say it on his video camera.  I don't have a vote here, but I guess I was given a voice. 

The runoff is scheduled for this Sunday.  We’ll see how it goes.  Apparently a lot of Romanians living in London and Paris had to stand in line for hours to vote at the embassy.  Many people speculate that the PSD made it hard for the Romanian diaspora to vote since they’re sure they won’t vote for them.  Ponta’s response was that only a few hundred thousand voted anyways, so it’s not a big deal. 

As my mom and I were emailing about the election, she wrote, “In some ways politics are not much different here.  Politicians "buy" votes with promises instead of cash.  Political parties try to make voting more difficult or restrictive with 'rules' to prevent voter fraud.  All this can have both a good and a bad side.  Like most things in life... our greatest strength can also be our greatest weakness.”  Well said, mom.

Mainly, we’re praying for a free and fair election, that even though many factors are being used to influence Romania to vote one way or another, that Romania would vote for the candidate they think will govern them well.  I think that an underlying sentiment is something along the lines of, “We’ve survived a lot of rotten governments, but we’re still Romanians, and we’re still alive and kicking.”

We’ll keep you updated.