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Klaus Iohannis’ victory in the first round was largely expected given the developments in recent months. Iohannis has been the last stand in PSD’s attempt to change the justice laws and create an illiberal regime in Romania, following the models in Hungary and Poland. He took action when most needed, although some (especially USR) criticized him for acting to slow, putting out fires instead of preventing them.

The recent change of Government also played in his favor. The fact that Iohannis’ party – PNL decided and managed to replace the PSD Government of Viorica Dancila before the presidential elections, risking significant potential losses before the parliamentary elections next year, assured the anti-PSD voters that Iohannis was true to his word.

The fact that Klaus Iohannis is a pro-European with a good image abroad also weighted in the voters’ decision.

Why did Dan Barna lose?

Dan Barna, 44, presented himself as the new-generation politician but failed to mobilize enough of the new-generation voters. He appealed to the young generation, which is very active in social media, but less reliable when it comes to voting. Young voters can, indeed, mobilize and change the result of an election when the stake is very high like they did in the 2014 presidential elections. However, this year, the stake was not actually that high. Nobody saw the risk that PSD could actually win the presidential elections this year and mobilization in the country was rather low as the final turnout figures show.

Thus, Dan Barna ended out fighting for the same anti-PSD voter base as Iohannis, with few chances of success. Moreover, his campaign followed roughly the same lines as Iohannis’ campaign: Romania without PSD. Iohannis promised “Normal Romania”, Barna promised “Happy Romania”. Moreover, some of the more radical ideas promoted by Barna and USR were not that well-received by all anti-PSD voters.

The decision not to join the PNL government after the Dancila cabinet was dismissed also weighted a lot in Barna’s defeat, as many of the USR fans felt that the party’s leaders were more interested in not losing political capital than in joining a new ruling coalition. USR and PLUS insisted on early elections, hoping to capitalize on their good score in the European elections and maybe become the leading party in a future ruling coalition, but they only ended up losing support and strengthening the Liberal Party’s dominant position on the local political scene.

The decision to organize internal elections in USR just months before the presidential elections and the complicated relationship between USR and PLUS, may have also played a part in Sunday's result. Instead of merging immediately after the success in the European elections, the two parties continued in an electoral alliance and several disagreements surfaced in the discussions about the candidates for the local elections next year.

The allegations related to the EU funded programs coordinated by Dan Barna in the past and some uninspired statements during the campaign didn’t help either.

by Andrei Chirileasa, Editor-in-Chief of Romania-Insider.com

(Opening photo source: Klaus Iohannis on Facebook)