Presidential Election

Traian Basescu, the candidate of the Justice and Truth Coalition, won the second round of Romania's presidential election on 12 December, 2004, defeating Adrian Nastase of the Social Democratic Party/Humanist Party alliance. Basescu received 5,126,794 votes (51.2 per cent) to Nastase's 4,881,520 votes (48.7 per cent). Turnout in the second round was 54.80 per cent, with 10,112,262 out of 18,449,676 eligible voters going to the polls. The second-round outcome was a turnaround from the earlier vote on 28 November, which Nastase won by a margin of 40.94 per cent to 33.92 per cent. In addition to Basescu and Nastase, several other candidates ran during the first round, including Corneliu Vadim Tudor of the ultranationalist Greater Romania Party, (12.57 per cent), Marko Bela of the Hungarian Democratic Alliance of Romania (5.10 per cent), Gheorghe Coriolan Ciuhandu of the Democratic National Peasant Party (1.9 per cent), George Becali of the New Generation Party (1.77 per cent) and Petre Roman of the Party of Democratic Forces of Romania (1.35 per cent). Voting during the first round was marred by allegations of fraud, with opposition politicians and several NGOs charging that the ruling Social Democrats had organised systematic violations, including the busing of supporters to vote at multiple polling places.

Parliamentary Election

Romania's parliamentary election on 28 November resulted in a near-tie between the Social Democratic Party/Humanist Alliance, which won 132 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 57 seats in the Senate, and the Justice and Truth Alliance, which won 112 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 49 seats in the Senate. Corneliu Vadim Tudor's ultranationalists won 48 seats in the Chamber and 21 in the Senate, and the Democratic Union of Hungarians won 22 seats in the Chamber and 10 in the Senate. Other small parties won a combined total of 18 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. On Wednesday, 22 December, newly-elected President Traian Basescu formally gave the mandate for forming a new government to Prime Minister-designate Calin Popescu Tariceanu.