Social Democrats Win Romanian Election: Romania
BUCHAREST - Romania's left-wing opposition Social Democrats won most votes in the weekend general election, narrowly pushing their right-wing Liberal Democrats rivals into second place, according to official results released Tuesday.
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The Social Democrat PSD party won 33.6% of the votes for both chamber of deputies and the senate, just fractionally ahead of the right-wing Liberal Democrat PDL with 32.9%, the central electoral bureau said.
Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu's ruling Liberal Party was lagging way behind in third place with 18.6%.
For the first time this year, Romanians were voting for senators and deputies in a single round of voting, with 315 seats in the chamber of deputies and 137 seats in the senate up for grabs.
The Social Democrats won 33.09% of votes for the chamber of deputies and 34.16% of votes for the senate, while the Liberal Democrats scored 32.36% and 33.57% respectively.
Voting is on a basis of proportional representation, but the final allocation of seats in both houses will be announced later this week.
The Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania, or UDMR, junior partner in the current ruling coalition with Tariceanu's Liberal Party, came fourth, scoring an average 6.48% for both houses.
But the far-right Greater Romania Party, or PRM, the country's second political force in 2000, failed to secure the 5% needed to get into parliament.
Sunday's election highlighted the massive public disenchantment with politics. With around 18 million Romanians entitled to vote, turnout was just 39.26%, the lowest since the fall of communism in 1989.
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