Romania's far right expected to make gains in election

Romanians are voting in a parliamentary election with the far right expected to gain from uncertainty over whether the shock result in a presidential election will stand. Days after far-right politician Calin Georgescu won most votes in the presidential election first round, an opinion poll this week showed the hard-right Alliance for Uniting Romanians (AUR) had a narrow lead over the governing Social Democrats. Gains by far-right groupings in Sunday's parliamentary vote after a campaign dominated by voters' concerns over budget problems and the cost of living could upend Romania's pro-Western orientation and undermine support for Ukraine, political analysts said. "People who have serenely voted for Georgescu do not realise we are essentially talking about a total trajectory shift," political scientist Cristian Pirvulescu said. Romania is a member of the European Union and NATO. Georgescu's unexpected success last Sunday aroused suspicions of interference in the campaign, prompted a vote recount and led to a defeated candidate asking the country's top court to rerun the first round of voting. The confusion means the parliamentary election is going ahead with voters uncertain whether the outcome of the presidential first round vote will stand. They also do not know whether the presidential run-off - scheduled for December 8 between Georgescu and centrist Elena Lasconi - will go ahead or be held at a later date. The Constitutional Court considered the situation on Friday but decided to put off until Monday a decision on whether to annul the first round. Georgescu ran as an independent challenging entrenched mainstream parties, but political analysts say far-right parties are likely to gain from the uncertainty. "The net beneficiaries ... are Georgescu and the anti-establishment camp which is now getting additional ammunition: here is how state institutions work, how discretionary they are," said Sergiu Miscoiu, a political science professor at Babes-Bolyai University. An AtlasIntel opinion poll conducted from November 26-28 put the hard-right AUR on 22.4 per cent, with Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu's Social Democrats on 21.4 per cent, down 10 percentage points over two weeks and Lasconi's Save Romania Union at 17.5 per cent. The poll did not factor in the recount. Georgescu, 62, has been critical of NATO and Romania's stance on Ukraine, and has said Bucharest should engage, not challenge Russia. Opinion polls had not predicted his success.