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Rezumat: 2009 Presidential Elections in Romania. First Round (November 22) and Second Round (December 6). Until 2004, the presidential elections were held together with the Parliamentary ones. Afterwards, the legislation changed and a five-year period from one presidential election to another was established. As a result, the analysed event took place at the end of 2009, on November 22 (the first round) and December 6 (the second round). 12 candidates (table 1) were enrolled for the first round. 18,293,277 voters were comprised on the electoral lists in the entire country, of which 9,946,748 (54.37%) actually voted. There were 9,718,840 (97.71%) valid votes, while 227,446 (2.29%) votes were declared void. As a result of the first round of elections, only four candidates out of 12 gained more than 5% of the total of valid expressed (9,718,840). Only two candidates managed to obtain more than 30% of the votes: T. Băsescu (32.45%) and M. Geoană (31.15%), the third candidate, C. Antonescu, received 20.02%, while the fourth, C.V. Tudor, was preferred by only 5.56% of the voters. Other five candidates obtained a percentage below 1% (see table 1). Compared to this situation at national level, at county level T. Băsescu obtained most votes in Arad County (46.79%) and less votes in Botoşani County (23.85%), without taking into consideration the votes achieved abroad (56.05%) and in Covasna (19.77%) and Harghita (12.70%) counties. M. Geoană, as the first runner-up, was most voted in Olt County (45.81%) and less voted in Cluj County (19.41%), except for the two counties of Covasna (9.87%) and Harghita (5.69%), where the Hungarian voters had their own candidate, and the voters abroad (12.41%). The second runner-up, C. Antonescu, had his best result in Bucharest - Sector 1 (30.28%) and in Braşov County (27.18%), and the worst result in Dâmboviţa County (12.62%), of course with the exception of the two counties with a Hungarian majority, Harghita (5.44%) and Covasna (9.90%) (table 2). This aforementioned manner of territorial representation is illustrated similarly in the analysis by geographical-historical regions. T. Băsescu obtained 41.50% in Banat, and 29.67% of the votes in Oltenia. M. Geoană was most voted in Oltenia (41.47%) and less voted in Transylvania (21.75%). C. Antonescu obtained 28.50% in Bucharest and only 17.67% in Dobrudja. The second round, held on December 6, 2009, was much simpler than the first one, because the competition was only between the first two candidates, T. Băsescu and M. Geoană. The second round took place under the condition in which the number of voters included on the electoral lists was 18,303,224. The turnout was 58.02%, meaning that 10,620,116 people voted, of which 10,481,568 votes were valid (98.69%), while 138,548 (1.31%) were null. At the end of the election process, the final result was very close between the two candidates. T. Băsescu obtained 5,275,808 votes (50.33% of the valid votes) while M. Geoană achieved 5,205,760 votes (49.67%) accounted from the above-mentioned total. The difference between the two candidates was small, 70,048 votes in absolute numbers, and 0.66% in relative values. Regarding the highest and lowest relative (percentage) values of votes at county level, T. Băsescu received a maximum of 63.96% out of 224,185 valid votes in Arad County and a minimum of 38.01% out of 201,381 votes in Botoşani County, while M. Geoană obtained 61.99% of the votes in Botoşani County and 36.07% in Arad County. Analyzing the number of votes achieved by the two candidates in the geographical-historical regions, it came out that T. Băsescu got most votes in Banat (59.30% out of 720,881 valid votes) and less votes in Oltenia (43.94% out of 1,177,775 valid votes). M. Geoană obtained most votes in Oltenia (50.06%) and fewer votes in Banat (40.70%). Keywords: presidential elections, Romania, 2009, first
round (12 candidates), second round (two
candidates), territorial distribution, counties, geographical-historical
provinces. |
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