Romania's governing coalition comfortably won a weekend parliamentary poll, results showed on Monday, in an outcome likely to fuel tensions that have raised concern over the democratic credentials of one of EU's newest members. The Social-Liberal Union (USL) headed by Prime Minister Victor Ponta took nearly 60 percent of the vote, according to results from more than four-fifths of polling stations.
"We can call it a landslide victory, USL will have an atypically large majority" in post-communist Romania, Alexandru Radu, a professor of political sciences at Bucharest's Cantemir University, told AFP. Parties close to the coalition's arch-rival President Traian Basescu, the Right Romania Alliance (ARD), came in a distant second with nearly 17 percent of the vote, less than one third of USL's share.
Turnout was low at 41.6 percent as disenchantment with politics remains high in the newest European Union member. Six months after trying to unseat president Basescu, a move that earned the ruling coalition a sharp rebuke from both the European Union and the United States, the USL is poised to secure an absolute majority in parliament. "This is a cause for concerns as the USL showed in the summer a tendency to grab absolute power," sociologist Mircea Kivu told AFP.
Ponta on Sunday said he was ready to lead the next government. With the president's term running until 2014, the rivals will have to share power again, with more political turmoil likely, analysts have warned. Tensions between the prime minister and the president have simmered since the governing coalition assumed power in May. Basescu, who is due to officially name the new prime minister after the poll, has already repeatedly hinted that he could refuse to re-appoint Ponta as premier, describing his nemesis as a "mythomaniac".
"If the president refuses to appoint Ponta after such a clear election result, the political crisis will be prolonged," Alexandru Radu warned. "It will have devastating consequences in a country already badly hit by the economic crisis", he added. "It is now up to president Basescu to ensure that the transition will go smoothly and fast", Florin Negrutiu said in an editorial for the online news site Gandul, urging him to appoint Ponta.
There has been no reaction yet on the outcome of the poll from Basescu, who will be travelling to Oslo on Monday together with other heads of state to collect the Nobel peace prize awarded to the EU earlier this year. Ponta appeared to extend an olive branch, saying that after months of bitter feuding, "Romania now needs a period of calm".
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