Romania – presidential elections: Candidate Klaus Iohannis surpasses opponent Victor Ponta on number of Facebook fans

Sibiu’s mayor Klaus Iohannis has won the presidential race on Facebook, managing to get more likes than his counter candidate, Prime Minister Victor Ponta. Iohannis added more than 230,000 new Facebook fans in the last week, while Ponta only got 55,000 fans, according to Facebook statistics. Klaus Iohannis had 735,000 likes on his Facebook page, compared to only 707,000 for Ponta’s page, as of Sunday, November 16, at 16:45. Both candidates’ communications teams have been very active on Facebook during this campaign, trying to mobilize their voters. Ponta’s team posted photos of the PM and his family going to vote and a few banners with his main campaign messages, and his call to unity. The Iohannis team was more active. They posted a short movie with Iohannis’ statement in the day of the vote, but focused more on the voting process abroad, which was one of Iohannis main campaign themes for the second round. According to Iohannis’ Facebook page, thousands of Romanians are queuing to vote in Europe’s largest cities, and the organization of the elections aboard is again faulty. Iohannis’ team also wrote that he won most votes from Romanians in New Zeeland, Australia and South Korea. The polls close at 21:00 (Bucharest time), when the first results of the exit polls will be made public. First partial results of the official vote counting will be made public later in the night (2:00 AM and 5:00 AM). editor@romania-insider.com