Romania Opposition Parties Merge Before Elections

Romania’s centre-right National Liberal Party, PNL, and the Democratic Liberal Party, PDL, on Saturday unanimously voted to combine their forces in order to create a party capable of taking on Prime Minister Victor Ponta's ruling centre-left coalition.

The two parties will run a joint candidate in the presidential elections scheduled for November 2 under the name of the Christian Liberal Alliance.

“Together we are stronger and we have the chance not only to win the future election but also to change Romania,” said Klaus Iohannis, the PNL president.

Nominations for presidential candidates are due to be made in early August.

Analysts expect the centre-right’s candidate to be Iohannis, 55, an ethnic German and also mayor of the Transylvanian city of Sibiu in northern Romania.

The presidential elections are important for Romania because the president has to right to nominate the prime minister, the chiefs of intelligence services and the heads of anti-corruption bodies.

Ponta is to be the ruling party’s candidate, and is tipped to win the November vote.

A recent poll suggested that he would get 46.3 per cent of the votes in the first round of the next presidential elections, while Iohannis would come second with 32.6 per cent.

The vote would then go to a second-round run-off, in which Ponta would probably get 55 per cent of the votes and Iohannis 45 per cent, the survey conducted by the Political Rating Agency pollster suggested.

The current centre-left ruling coalition won around 38 per cent of the votes in the European parliamentary elections in May.

The coalition is comprised of the Social Democratic Party, PSD, and two minor parties. It also has a clear majority in parliament.