The Social Liberal Union (USL) is celebrating a landslide victory in the parliamentary elections as the first official results from Romania's electoral commission show an even bigger majority than suggested by the exit polls yesterday (December 9 ). With 81.49 percent of votes counted, the USL has 58.63 percent of votes for the Chamber of Deputies and 60.03 percent for the Senate.

The Right Romania Alliance (ARD) took 16.69 percent of votes for the Chamber of Deputies and 16.95 for the Senate, while the Popular Party Dan Diaconescu got 13.53 percent and 14.18 percent of the vote for the two chambers respectively.

The Democratic Magyar Union (UDMR), which represents ethnic Hungarians in Romania, took just over 5 percent of votes for both chambers. Meanwhile, the rest of the votes went to other smaller parties, which picked up less than 5 percent of votes.

Turnout at the election was higher than last time round in 2008. A spokesman for the electoral commission said that turnout was 41.62 percent for yesterday's parliamentary elections for 315 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 137 in the Senate. The exact numbers of seats won in the two chambers will be clearer later in the day when more complete results are announced.

editor@romania-insider.com

(photo source: Victor Ponta's Facebook page; in picture: prime Minister Victor Ponta)