(25 Nov 2019) People in Romania reacted Monday to the re-election of Klaus Iohannis as the country's president.
Iohannis easily won a runoff vote Sunday on a platform to continue fighting corruption and strengthen the rule of law.
With 88% of the votes counted, the center-right Iohannis had 63.2% while Social Democratic Party leader Viorica Dancila, a recently ousted former prime minister, had 36.8%.
Voter turnout for the runoff was 49.87%, down from 53.17% in 2014.
One student at a political science university in Bucharest expressed a sense of voter fatigue, saying that "it doesn't really matter who you vote for, Iohannis will come out first anyway".
But others at the university highlighted the prospect of a consolidation of power in a government with shared ideological roots.
After Dancila’s government was ousted Oct. 10 having lost a confidence vote in parliament over allegations of corruption, lawmakers earlier this month backed a minority government led by Prime Minister Ludovic Orban of the National Liberal Party, formerly headed by Iohannis.
With their shared values, Iohannis and Orban are expected to work together to boost the anti-graft measures.
However, there was also "undoubtedly the threat of authoritarism of an executive superstructure in which the president and the government both have the same political colour," according to Andrei Taranu of the National School of Political Science and Public Administration.
Romania, a member of the EU since 2007, is plagued by widespread poverty with over 25% of its population living on less than $5.50 a day, according to a World Bank study last year.
Public outrage also resulted in frequent, mass anti-corruption protests in Bucharest and other cities.
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