Senate passes pure uninominal voting law

The Senate plenum passed by majority vote , the bill on the pure uninominal vote, in a single tour.

Senator Crin Antonescu, one of the initiators, pointed out that by this system it is transferred the responsibility from parties to voters.

"In this formula, granting mainly the accountability and the power to the voter, we have a common factor for all our elected MP’s, so an equal degree of legitimacy and we also have another advantage ,a settlement ,a sedimentation on solid bases, principle-based doctrine of the Romanian political scene", Crin Antonescu said.

UDMR senator Marko Bela said that there is a populism danger and many communities, not necessarily ethnic, remain without representation in Parliament.

"In a country like Romania, with many traditional areas, with many local communities, in my opinion , it would be desirable that there is a proportional system which ensures the representation of the different areas, different interests, different doctrines, whether they are smaller and possibly smaller than other minority groups", said Marko Bela.

Other issues raised by the senators referred to the danger of the entry into Parliament of some extremist parties and the danger of illegal funding of some candidates.

According to the procedure, the bill will go to the Chamber of Deputies , which is for decision-making in this case.

If the bill passes by Parliament, at the upcoming elections it will be declared winner in an election college , the candidate with the highest votes.


Translated by
Denisse-Meda Bucura
MTTLC, Bucharest University