How EFOR will observe the 2024 elections in Romania, both in terms of actual electoral mechanics and in terms of party spending and propaganda themes, online and offline, I provide below a brief analysis of the reshuffles they have had or will see the parties in power coalition (which includes unofficial, surprise-surprise and UDMR), in its game with the election calendar. As a result, the four scenarios in the figure were unrealistic for 2024. The normal solution for the PSD, but especially for the desperate PNL, is to leave the electoral calendar alone and go about governing.

Scenario 0: All four separate elections, each on a scheduled date

Advantages:

1. Preserve the existing democratic and institutional system, without impromptu changes in the rules four months before the elections. Changes in the electoral system less than 12 months before the election are not legitimate if they do not fix loopholes or create a framework that expands electoral rights – on the contrary, they explode and complicate the situation for no objective reason. More on this in last month’s EFOR report.
2. Decision CCR 51/2012 has been complied with, which shows that election procedures should not limit a person’s right to participate in elections (local, national, European); Obviously, any merger automatically limits this right.

Disadvantages:

• PNL leaders refer to the “estimate of the Ministry of Finance” according to which the cost of four types of elections (with five rounds) is 3.8 billion lei (€770 million). However, no one has seen any written document taken by the Finance Ministry for these calculations and any brief breakdown of expenditure to know how this huge amount was arrived at. Also, we don’t have the simulations of scenarios like the one in the picture to know how much the costs would be reduced in each option and make an informed decision. Most likely, such a document as the one referred to by the PNL does not exist, and we are dealing only with party statements, which will remain, like many other Romanian debates about politicians unprofessionally, in the field of oral political folklore.
• Risk of low voter turnout. This would be obvious if the elections were held in the reverse order: the presidential elections would be the first, and the European elections would be the last. But since the European Parliament elections are the first (high interest from the parties as an electoral test), then there are local elections, which have their own logic and involve actors at the basic level of the administration, who are directly interested, and only then the presidential ones, which are highly personalized and involve the diaspora , the sequence involves the least risk of all in terms of participation. The only ones vulnerable to public disinterest are parliamentary elections (but which are the most interesting for parties); for this see scenarios C and D below.

Script A

1. It favors large parties with many mayors who will also appear in the EP.
2. They say that they will put the extremists in a disadvantageous position for the EP, because they do not have mayors to shoot on the spot. But on the other hand, the reverse logic also works: they will push more extremists into local administration, because their nationwide propaganda in the EP campaign will help extremist candidates for mayors and councils. It is impossible to say in advance whether effect (1) or (2) will prevail; we will learn from the post-election analysis.
3. Given that there are only four months left before the European Parliament elections on June 6-9, holding local elections in such a short period of time will put voters who do not have residence documents at a disadvantage.
4. This greatly complicates the organization of elections, since there are different rules for the operation of polling stations, which are formed according to different criteria, on local and European ones.
5. It is quite possible that holding local elections in June will still be illegal, since local mandates are acquired within 20 days after the election is recognized, and the conditions for the extension of the powers of current mayors and councilors are restrictive, somehow related to force majeure situations (such as was in 2020 during the pandemic). However, in 2024 there are no objective reasons for this, only the political will of the majority. In other words, after June you can’t have mayors with an extended mandate (illegal) and a series of elected mayors waiting to get a mandate after three months (also illegal).

Scenario B

1. He favors large parties with many mayors, but especially the PNL, where the disparity in profile, visibility and electoral strength between the local (good) and national (extremely weak) levels is most apparent.
2. It is possible that it is unconstitutional according to Decision CCR 51/2012, when there was an attempt to combine: the most diverse elections are combined from the point of view of political and organizational logic; and in any case too little time before they are carried out: see the full discussion above on the period and the rationale for any change towards more complicated procedures.

Script by S

1. This would be most interesting for the political class and the current ruling coalition, as it would put the most unpopular institution (Parliament) at the helm of a local campaign where local representatives of the major parties dominate the landscape and have vested interests. in investing their own resources, thereby helping the whole party.
2. The disadvantage is that such a scenario is the least interesting to the electorate and therefore it is difficult to support it publicly.
3. Here the legal obstacle is probably the strongest, since Decision CCR 51/2012 mentions exactly such an attempt in the sense that it is unconstitutional.

Scenario D

1. This is the formula that Romania had before the 2008-2009 election cycle, when it was decided to separate the parliamentary from the presidential elections for opportunistic and unsubstantiated reasons.
2. Advantages: theoretically, the idea of ​​the offset was to increase the probability that the president would become a counterweight to a parliamentary majority of a different political color than his (cohabitation). It is not clear from the analysis of the following period whether this change contributed to a better balance on the political stage: periods check and balance the real ones were short, and the president later renounced the parliamentary majority. So scenario D would offer simplicity without losing who knows what the advantages of democratically divided elections.
3. Advantages: costs will be reduced (just as NLP is now referred to), and the risk of low turnout in purely parliamentary elections will also be reduced.
4. Recombining parliamentary elections with the first round of presidential elections may be the solution for 2024; otherwise it would be difficult because it would require an amendment to the Constitution. In this situation, the balance of power between the president and the parliament could be achieved more democratically through simultaneous changes that would simplify the organization of early elections. Read the whole article and comment on Contributors.ro