Romania’s ruling coalition followed at a distance by far-right party AUR in new election poll

A recent poll conducted by INSCOP shows that the governing coalition made up of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the National Liberal Party (PNL) would receive 43.7% of votes in the upcoming European Parliament elections, followed by far-right party AUR with 20.6%. The two coalition parties are also frontrunners in the local elections, which will take place on the same day.

The third spot would be taken by the United Right Alliance, with 13.7% of votes, according to the INSCOP survey conducted at the request of News.ro.

Romania is set to hold the European Parliament and local elections on the same day, June 9. While PSD and PNL will have a joint list for the former, the two parties are running as opponents during the latter.

The same INSCOP poll shows that PSD would come on top at the local elections, gaining 30.6% of votes, followed by partners PNL, with 25.6%, and AUR, with 17.4%. The opposition United Right Alliance would receive 9.8%.

57.2% of Romanians have a good opinion about merging the European Parliament elections and the local elections on June 9, while 36.2% have a bad opinion about it. 76% of PSD-PNL voters, 50% of AUR voters, and 47% of ADU voters have a good opinion about the merger.

People with higher education, white-collar workers, and those with very high incomes have a slightly higher than average good opinion about the merger. Blue-collar workers, residents of Bucharest, and those with low incomes, in particular, have a bad opinion about the merging of elections.

More than half of respondents, 51.3%, disagree with the governing coalition forming joint lists for the European Parliament elections and running separately in the local elections.

Almost 60% of people said that they are definitely going to vote in the European Parliament elections. 43.7% of Romanians would vote for the PSD-PNL alliance, 20.6% for AUR, and 13.7% for the United Right Alliance (USR-PMP-FD). 6.4% of Romanians would vote for SOS Romania (Diana Șoșoacă), and 3.9% for UDMR.

"PNL evidently capitalizes on the structure of local elected officials, which determines a higher score for the local councils of cities and communes. The sum of PSD and PNL votes in the elections for Local Councils is about 56%, almost 13 percentage points more than the voting intention for the PSD-PNL alliance in the European Parliament elections. AUR, ADU, and SOS Romania get lower scores in the local elections for Local Councils than in the European Parliament elections," says Remus Stefureac, director of INSCOP Research, according to News.ro.