Romania goes to polls for parliamentary elections

ATHENS

Romanians are headed to the ballot box Sunday for parliamentary elections.

Voting will start at 7 a.m. (0500GMT) and last until 9 p.m. for 19.5 million eligible voters. Candidates from 31 parties, alliances and 19 organizations of national minorities will compete for 330 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 136 in the Senate.

The country has a proportional system in 43 electoral constituencies, which correspond to the 41 counties in Romania, the municipality of Bucharest and the constituency for the diaspora.

Each constituency is designated to represent a geographical area, and the number of mandates allocated to each constituency is proportional to the number of residents.

Parties must exceed the electoral threshold of 5% at the national level or at least 20% of votes in four constituencies to win seats in parliament.

The latest forecast is that the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the bigger partner of the ruling coalition, is leading with around 25% and right-wing populist, the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), follows with 21%.

The central-right Save Romania Union (USR) is predicted to be the third-largest party with around 16%, followed by another central-right National Liberal Party (PRL) with 14%.

The central-right Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) and far-right SOS Romania are also expected to pass the 5% threshold and win seats in parliament.