2-in-1 Elections in Romania Were Ruling Coalition's Strategy to Achieve High Turnout, b1 Journalist Says

Razvan Munteanu, a journalist with the Romanian news TV channel b1 and host of the Check Media programme, believes that the 2-in-1 elections were a strategy of the ruling coalition to achieve high voter turnout. Munteanu spoke to BTA in an interview after his country voted June 9. "The political parties were focused on the local elections. The strategy is straightforward: those who vote for a local party or candidate will likely vote for the same party in the European elections," he said.

Munteanu says the outcome of the elections was not a surprise to him. "We have a party alliance, the National Liberal Party and Social Democrats, who won the election. Our scores are very low compared to expectations, so in this context, it is not surprising. We need to see the results from the diaspora's vote; perhaps AUR will gain another percent. Officially, they are not an anti-European Union party, and I don't believe they are. However, they advocate a sovereign state, very similar to Russian propaganda. We understand their strategy well. They have been using historical figures like Vlad the Impaler, Stephen the Great, and Michael the Brave to promote a nationalistic view and emphasize our powerful ancestry in the region."

He says there was not much campaigning for the elections. "We did not seen in Romania any campaign for the European elections, even from the biggest parties, even from the coalition, and nobody has talked, nobody had discussed in a debate important topics, like Schengen, adoption of the euro, or something like that."

Asked about his expectations about the presidential and parliamentary elections, which will be held in Romania later this year, he said, "We have two major parties with their own visions, and they need to focus on that. In my opinion, they want to go to the elections together, maintaining their governmental alliance both before and after the elections. This alliance has provided strong political stability in Romania in recent years. Unfortunately, in Bulgaria, governments have changed very quickly. Romania has avoided this situation for now. I believe the Russian-Ukrainian war at our border has pressured our political leaders to maintain this stability."