Romania’s Ruling Liberals, Opposition Social Democrats Roughly Agree On Uninominal Vote System

The liberal representative in the negotiations, Mihai Voicu, said after the discussions that although a consensus has not been reached, opinions converge on several points.

 

He said liberals insist that the uninominal voting system law be based on two fundamental principles: voting in uninominal constituencies, with no additional lists, and the principle of proportional representation.

 

The representative of the Hungarian minority party, Marton Arpad, insisted that additional lists be kept, otherwise the party would lose votes in the constituencies where it does not gain mandates.

 

Under the current system, legislative mandates are attributed only to parties that reach the electoral threshold of 5% and political alliances that gain at least 8% of the total number of votes. The number of candidates on party lists that receive mandates is set in direct ratio to the number of votes obtained by the respective party.

 

However, a party can receive additional mandates in parliament by redistribution of votes. Votes collected by parties that end up below the electoral threshold are redistributed to parties who reached the threshold, in direct ratio to the number of votes gained.

 

The Hungarian party argued for a solution to keep the practice of redistribution of votes.

 

Opposition social democrats, represented by Anghel Stanciu, also rejected the option of keeping additional lists.

 

Both social democrats and liberals said they are confident the next round of negotiations would bring about a more firm agreement, that would allow the drafting of a law to introduce the uninominal voting system.