Referenda must have become a preferred mechanism on double-checking political prowess in Romania now that other tools to that effect have lost their sharpness.

For months on end, Romanian president Traian Basescu and prime minister (PM) Calin Popescu Tariceanu, the former allies, have been embroiled in political infighting. Stability in parliament has been as fragile as to continually tease the two into the radical solution – early elections. With the political situation undergoing little change, referring to public opinion has been used as the arbiter in the disputes between the head of state and head of cabinet.

Romania will be going to the ballot stations for the second time this year. On May 19 2007, the Romanian people had to judge whether the president should be impeached or not. Another ballot is due on November 25 and it would be an unusual one as it will be taking place alongside the elections for the European Parliament.

This time, the population has to choose between the voting system favoured by president and that of the prime minister.

The population, however, do not appear to be engaged in the topic. Recent polls show that more than half of the population are not familiar with terms such as “uninominal” and “constituency”, both keywords in the question being asked at the referendum. (The question is phrased as follows: “Do you agree that from next parliamentary elections onwards, all Deputies and Senators be elected in uninominal constituencies, based on a majority of votes in two rounds of voting?”)
Polls also see voter turnout at a low of 10 per cent.

Bones of contention
The president and prime minister, with the parliament, have been at odds on the constitutionality of holding two separate votes at a time. The Romanian president insists that the referendum be held on the same date as EP elections as this would save in costs and time to the people.

Tariceanu, offering his proposal together with that of parliament, believes that the two should be held at separate dates or at least in different polling stations to ensure that voting system issue does not dilute the public’s focus on as important a vote as for European Parliament. Tariceanu maintains, in view of the public’s general unawareness of what the referendum question is about, a public awareness campaign is essential. Otherwise the vote’s result is likely to be meaningless or at the very least just a vote in favour of the referendum’s promoter, Basescu.

The very essence of the argument, a local journalist told The Sofia Echo, is “nonsense”.

“Barely a year ago,” they said, “the president himself slammed the uninominal voting system inquiry as ‘nonsensical’. Now he is backing out from his own words to send the reverse message. This is just another round within a long-running political fight.”

The core of the argument
PM Tariceanu insists that the next general elections use the so-called mix between the uninominal voting system and the proportional system. In other words, this means that some constituencies would be voting using party lists as in the proportional system and others would use the uninominal system.

In the uninominal system, like that used at Bulgaria’s local elections, candidates run as individuals, as independent or party-affiliated. Whichever individual gets the largest number of votes wins the seat in parliament. If two people get the same number of votes, the winning candidate is selected through a run-off.

Basescu holds onto the use of the uninominal-only voting system.

According to local experts, the system proposed by the president favours the larger political parties as the focus during voting is swayed from the ideological platform of parties onto voting for individuals. Naturally, individuals from larger parties have more visible campaigns and are more likely to be picked from a list of individuals.

Why this referendum now?
The move of the president has been interpreted as a forward-looking attempt to sway the balance in parliament to his favour whenever the opportunity arises. The president is enjoying huge popularity at present and chances that his proposal would win the ballot are high.

Suffice to say, the president survived the parliament-called impeachment vote earlier this year. His uncompromising stance on fighting corruption and establishing an independent judiciary, which he carried out together with Ms Macovei, his corruption-fighting ministerial weapon, ushered Romania into the European Union (EU). This is an achievement that a largely pro-EU population are unlikely to forget. Especially given that EU entry took place not so long ago. Therefore, a referendum is again likely to serve the president’s interests.

At present, the president feels the pressure from parliament and government. Tariceanu’s Liberals currently have the upper edge owing to the coalition with the party of the ethnic Hungarians, which traditionally serve as the fixture for governmental coalitions.

With the political infighting ongoing and Tariceanu’s Liberals unrelenting in their attempts to oust a public-supported foe from the political arena, Basescu continues the counter-strategy for a more Basescu-friendly parliament from these general elections onwards.

At the same time, Tariceanu’s government has been losing out on public and expert support. Poverty levels in the country are still high, a couple of ministers have lost their seats after corruption scandals. Within a year, the country’s budget has suffered a downslide from surplus to deficit and is set to reach 3.1 per cent of GDP in an overshoot of the Maastricht threshold for entry to the Eurozone, a critical governmental promise.

With support flagging, Tariceanu and parliament have been utilising all means to avert bringing the Basescu-Tariceanu power struggle to the public decision because the high likelihood that Basescu would win. For this reason, the attempt is going through numerous letters to the president and a challenge of the simultaneous vote’s constitutionality at the Constitutional Court.

The president, on the contrary, returned the two bills regulating MEP elections and the one on the public referendum.

Two-in-one vote to take place
On November 11, however, the Constitutional Court sided with the president and upheld his reasoning that the concurrent vote, within the same polling stations, would save costs and would prepare the country for the forthcoming elections. Despite that experts and the majority of the media prefer the prime minister-parliament’s voting system vision to that of the president for its stress on “ideological platforms rather than individuals”, the public is likely to vote for Basescu the individual.

With the outcome likely to cause little upset, Basescu is surely using his public favour to try for a long political career and at the helm of his country. Being a popular person, it is likely that the personalities in his political squad, the Democrats, would be on the winning side at general elections based on the uninominal voting system, whenever they take place.