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IMAS Poll: Klaus Iohannis gains solid lead over his competitors, USR leader Dan Barna advances in the second place
The current Romanian president Klaus Iohannis, supported by the National Liberal Party (PNL - opposition), has a significant lead over his competitors in the presidential elections scheduled in the fall (November 10 and 24), with 44.6 percent of voting intentions. Dan Barna, the leader of USR, is placed for the first time in the second place, with 17.3 percent, according to the latest poll ahead of the presidential elections in Romania, conducted by IMAS at the request of Europa FM.
The poll released Friday puts former PM Victor Ponta in the third place, with 14 percent, followed by former Senate president Calin Popescu Tariceanu, with 12.7 percent, and current PM Viorica Dancila, with only 8.4 percent.
Regarding the Parliamentary elections, scheduled at end-2020, the poll released puts PNL in a solid first place with 28.4 percent, with USR lagging behind at 19.8 percent (but the coalition USR Plus is credited with 25.3 percent).
PSD’s score (17.9 percent) is the worst in decades as the governing party struggle to maintain its government following the fall of the rulling coalition.
The former junior coalition member ALDE, the party led by former PM and PSD ally Calin Popescu Tariceanu, left the ruling coalition earlier this week.
The IMAS poll, conducted between August 5 and 28, had 1,010 respondents and has an error margin of +/- 3.1 percent.
However, despite the distance in the polls, some experts say that Dan Barna may turn out to be an uncomfortable challenger for Mr. Iohannis.
“At this moment (mid-August 2019), we know that Mr. Klaus Iohannis will enter the second round from the first place, together with Mr. Dan Barna, in second place. In the second round, Mr. Barna wins by 52 to 48 percent,” Alin Teodorescu, a reputed sociologist and the head of the IMAS polling house, recently told Evenimentul Zilei.
According to him, Dancila’s chances to enter the final round are ridiculously low.
“Mrs. Dancila has no chance of passing to the second round, regardless of any alliance she had. Victor Ponta and Liviu Dragnea have left a terrible legacy to the Social Democrats,” Alin Teodorescu siad.
The PSD not having a candidate in the second election round would be a first for Romania since the bloody December 1989 Revolution. The party, a political monster emerged from the ruins of the Soviet-led Romanian communist republic, has ruled this country for most of the last three decades.
But Romanian society is changing, and its politics are changing as well. A real middle class is emerging in major cities, for the first time in the country’s history, and massive migration to wealthier states is changing the structure of rural communities as well.
And this new society needs new political structures to represent it.