Principalele ziare internaționale au scris despre alegerile din România.

The Guardian

Romania’s prime minister conceded defeat on Sunday night after an extremely close presidential runoff against an ethnic German Transylvanian mayor. Victor Ponta had been the favorite to win, but was narrowly edged out by Klaus Iohannis, the mayor of the city of Sibiu, who has promised a crackdown on corruption.

Ponta said he had personally congratulated Iohannis. “We are a democratic country,” Ponta said outside the headquarters of his Social Democratic party two hours after polls closed. “The people are always right.”

Ponta called on 15,000 protesters gathered outside his offices to listen to his message in an apparent attempt to defuse tensions encountered by expat Romanians voting abroad.

Exit polls put the results at neck and neck. The official result is expected on Monday.

About 300,000 Romanians who live overseas voted, many against the government. There were protests that they had been unable to vote in the election on November 2 that led to the runoff.

“Romanians, you were heroes today,” Iohannis said before Ponta’s concession, calling on authorities to count the vote correctly. “The vote was phenomenal!” He went on to say that voters had come “out of their houses to defend the right to vote” 25 years after the Romanian revolution.

New York Times

BUCHAREST — Romania’s presidential race was neck-and-neck on Sunday, with exit polls showing centre-right candidate Klaus Iohannis staging a surprising comeback against frontrunner Prime Minister Victor Ponta, which could leave the result in the hands of voters abroad.

Backed by a well-oiled party machine, Ponta had led opinion polls throughout the campaign and comfortably beat Iohannis, an ethnic German, in the first round election on Nov 2. However, exit polls on Sunday showed a mixed picture, with two showing just over 50 percent for Ponta and two others showing the same for Iohannis, and one split exactly down the middle.

“We’re seeing a spectacular comeback by Iohannis, who now has a competitive advantage over Ponta in a tight vote,” said political commentator Cristian Patrasconiu.

“It’s still very hard to predict a winner, but it’s clear that the final outcome will depend on votes from the diaspora, who showed up at polling stations in larger numbers than in the first round.”

The former Communist state of 20 million is emerging from painful budget cuts imposed during the global slowdown. Growth rebounded to more than 3 percent in the third quarter of 2014, but corruption and tax evasion are rife, and progress to implement reforms and overhaul a bloated state sector is mixed.

A former prosecutor and amateur rally driver, the 42-year-old Ponta had courted voters with tax cuts and promises of more pension increases, shrugging off several scandals that dogged the final weeks of his campaign.

A Ponta presidency would tighten his leftist Social Democrat party’s grip on power. Prime minister since 2012, Ponta often feuded with his rival, outgoing President Traian Basescu, which stymied policymaking and caused a constitutional crisis.

Without the check on power hitherto provided by Basescu, Ponta’s rise has raised concerns he might tighten political control over the judiciary, prosecutors and media, in a country whose justice system remains under special EU supervision.

But Iohannis as president would, like Basescu, face a hostile Social Democrat majority in parliament that could cause more policy wrangling.

Financial Times

BBC

The Romanian Prime Minister, Victor Ponta, has conceded victory in the country’s presidential run-off to centre-right candidate Klaus Iohannis.

“I called Mr Iohannis and I congratulated him,” Mr Ponta, a Social Democrat, told reporters.

Exit polls were unclear over the outcome of the vote. Early results are expected on Monday.

Romania is one of the EU’s most corrupt member states, something which Mr Iohannis has vowed to tackle.

Correspondents say the outcome of the election may have been decided by Romania’s large diaspora.

Many of the four million Romanians living abroad are said to be disillusioned with Mr Ponta.

After the first round of voting, there were protests at polling stations in Paris, London, and other cities when voters had to queue for hours, with some unable to vote, leading to the resignation of the foreign minister last week.

Corruption crackdown

Mr Ponta was leading in the opinion polls and had beaten Mr Iohannis, the mayor of Sibiu, in the first round of the presidential election.

“We are a democratic country,” Mr Ponta said outside the headquarters of his Social Democratic Party on Sunday. “The people are always right.”

Bloomberg

Romanian Liberal Party leader and ethnic German mayor Klaus Johannis erased a 10-percentage point deficit to unexpectedly beat Prime Minister Victor Ponta in the Black Sea nation’s second-round presidential election.

Ponta conceded defeat in a televised speech from Bucharest in which he congratulated Johannis even as exit polls showed the race too close to call. He lost his lead from two weeks ago, when he won the election’s first round with 40.4% of the votes compared with 30.4% for Johannis. Ponta said he wouldn’t resign from the prime minister’s post.

The Electoral Bureau will release the vote’s first partial results at 2 a.m. tomorrow. Turnout was about 62 percent when polls closed at 9 p.m. in Bucharest, Electoral Bureau data showed.

“The results are a big surprise compared to the first round, but not so big compared to previous elections,” Cristian Ghinea, head of the Romanian Center of European Policies, said today by phone. “Ponta was defeated because he lost a big lead in two weeks after annoying the urban electorate by failing to organize the voting abroad and showing too much confidence in his victory.”

The final result was influenced by the votes cast by Romanians living abroad. About 290,000 voted abroad by 7 p.m., more than double than in the Nov. 2 first round.

Romanian Prime Minister and Presidential Candidate Victor Ponta, center, and his wife… Read More

Several thousand people took to the streets in Bucharest and other cities to protest long lines at voting centers abroad. People in Bucharest were asking for Ponta’s resignation as television images showed thousands of Romanians lining up for hours to vote in London, Paris, Munich and other cities in Europe. Police fired tear gas in Turin to disperse Romanians angry that they weren’t able to vote before polls closed, according to Realitatea TV.

Le Monde

Le premier ministre social-démocrate, Victor Ponta, a reconnu dimanche 16 novembre la victoire de son adversaire de droite Klaus Iohannis à l’élection présidentielle roumaine, dont les résultats définitifs seront connus lundi.

Alors que les sondages réalisés entre les deux tours donnaient M. Ponta gagnant avec une avance de huit points, la mobilisation des jeunes a fait la différence, selon les analystes. Klaus Iohannis, libéral issu de la minorité allemande, a bénéficié d’une participation « énorme » – 61 %, selon les chiffres préliminaires, un record pour ce pays où la lassitude des électeurs face à la corruption et à la pauvreté n’a cessé de croître ces dernières années.

Scandales de corruption

Ce scrutin est considéré comme crucial, à un moment où la démocratie a subi des revers dans d’autres pays d’Europe centrale comme la Hongrie, et où la crainte a été exprimée d’une reprise en main de la justice par la majorité de M. Ponta, 25 ans après la chute du dictateur Nicolae Ceausescu il y a 25 ans.

 

Die Zeit