The ruling Social Democrats (PSD) lead with 28% of the voting preferences in the most recent poll conducted in Romania, followed by the radical party AUR (22%). However, only 37% of those polled indicated a preference for a particular party – which puts PSD's score at some 10% of the total electorate.

The Liberal Party (PNL), part of the ruling coalition, is backed by only 18% of those who expressed a valid preference, Digi24 reported. The reformist party USR would get only 13% of the votes, and the fifth party to meet the electoral threshold is the ethnic Hungarian party UDMR (6%).

The overwhelming majority (85%) of Romanians believe that things are going in the wrong direction, while only 12% believe that things are heading in the right direction.

The survey was conducted between May 27 and June 11, using the telephone interview method, on a sample of 916 subjects, with a margin of error of 3.4%.

There's a lack of options for Romanian voters, Alina Mungiu Pipiddi argues in a column published prior to the poll but supported by its outcome. She comes up with the idea of a [ideal] Party of Meritocracy to draft an entirely new budget able to meet all the requirements.

"We need to stimulate parties to emerge," she argues – adding that radical steps such as progressive taxation should be among the solutions.

"Without increasing revenues to the budget, none of these claims [of teachers or judges] can be met. Our middle class is extraordinarily consumerist, not innovative or entrepreneurial. The city is filled with people living in miserable blocks of apartments but parking their last Mercedes model in the parking lot. The state we want to have is not sustainable unless we pay more taxes. Higher taxes must be paid by whoever has more money. The Liberals can't support progressive taxation, nobody votes for them anymore. No one in Germany believes me when I tell them how low the taxes are in Romania."

iulian@romania-insider.com

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