May 27 (SeeNews) - Romania's national liberal party (PNL) won some 26.79% of the votes for European Parliament (EP) amid high trunout on Sunday, defeating both parties comprising the country's ruling coalition, partial official results indicated on Monday.
The ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD) won 23.38% of votes, the electoral commission, BEC, said after counting the ballots cast in 96.93% of the polling stations. PSD's junior coalition partner, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE), got only 4.24% of votes, below the 5% entry threshold.
Also on Sunday, over 41% of Romanians with the right to vote cast ballots in a referendum on justice. Some 80% of them responded with 'yes' to two questions regarding the continuation of the country's fight against corruption, according to BEC preliminary data.
Voter turnout in Sunday's elections was 49.02% versus 32.4% in Romania's previous elections for MEPs held in 2014.
PNL's score would give it ten seats in the European Parliament versus nine for PSD.
The biggest surprise in the elections came from the 2020 Alliance of Union Save Romania (USR) and PLUS, which came in third according to provisional data, winning 21.41% of votes. USR was founded three years ago by civic activist Nicusor Dan, while PLUS was created only last year by former prime minister Dacian Ciolos, so they will be represented for a first time in the EP.
PNL is a member of the European People's Party (EPP). PSD is a member of the Party of European Socialists (PES), but PES last month decided to freeze relations with PSD due to its disregard of the rule of law. ALDE is part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, which has threatened it with exclusion for interferance with the country's fight against corruption.
USR and PLUS have so far been affiliated to the ALDE/Renaissance/USR-PLUS family. Both party leaders Dan Barna and Ciolos said earlier this month that after the elections their parties will adhere to a newly formed centre-right European political family.
If ALDE does not meet the threshold, they would get seven seats in the EP.
PRO Romania, the party of former PSD prime minister Victor Ponta got 6.61% of votes and would get 2 seats in the EP. Founded in 2018, it will be represented for a first time in the EP.
The Popular Movement Party (PMP) of former president Traian Basescu got 5.66% of votes, which translates into two seats.
The Hungarian minority party, UDMR, won 5.45% of votes, meaning two seats in the EP.
The country is allocated 32 of the 751 members of the new European Parliament. When the UK will leave the EU, the number will increase to 33. The threshold for a party to get into the Parliament is set at 5%.
There are 18.26 million eligible voters in the nation of 19.64 million people. A total of 473 candidates ran in Sunday's elections.
Romania joined the EU in 2007.
The current composition of the EP for Romania is - PSD (10 seats), PNL (8 seats), ALDE (2 seats), PRO Romania (2 seats), UDMR (2 seats), PLUS (1 seat), National Union for Romania's Progress (1 seat) and six independent or unaffiliated MPs.
An MP who migrated from PMP to PLUS currently has a seat in the the EP, same is the case with PRO Romania MPs, who migrated from PSD.