Romania's opposition leads in elections: Exit polls

Romania's opposition Social Democratic Party has won a landslide victory in the country's quadrennial parliamentary elections, after it took more than 45 per cent of the votes on Sunday, exit polls show.

According to the results of the exit polls, which were announced upon the end of voting at 9:00 p.m. local time (1900 GMT), the Social Democrats took more than 45 per cent of votes both for the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, Xinhua cited two exit polls as saying.

The party has a significant lead over the pro-presidential National Liberal Party, which won the second most votes. The Liberals took about 21 per cent of the votes for the both chambers of the new parliament.

The Save Romania Union, a party founded several months ago by the mathematician and former civic activist Nicusor Dan, won nearly nine per cent of the votes for the parliament.

Other parties hopeful to enter the new parliament include the Liberal Democratic Alliance, the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania and the People's Movement Party.

Two exit polls were carried out in parliamentary elections on Sunday, one by the Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy and the other was jointly carried out by the Centre for Urban and Regional Sociology and the Socio-Behavioural Study Group Avangarde.

According to the Central Electoral Bureau, the nationwide voter turnout in the parliamentary elections on Sunday stood at 39.49 per cent.

As many as 6,477 candidates, including candidates from more than a dozen political parties and independent candidates, are running seats in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.

The new parliament will have 136 senators and 326 deputies, including 308 deputies to be elected by voters and 18 designated ones representing ethnic minorities.

--IANS

sku/