2024 General Elections

Romania’s ruling coalition reportedly agreed on February 27 to schedule the two presidential election ballots on September 15 and 29 – more than two months before the term of president Klaus Iohannis ends in December, Digi24 announced, quoting sources familiar with the negotiations. The parliamentary elections would be organized later in December, as the Social Democrats and Liberals had previously agreed. After the decision agreed upon by the ruling coalition, the date of the presidential elections is to be validated by the leadership of the National Liberal Party. The Social Democrats have already validated the calendar of the early presidential elections in September.

Romania is a constitutional republic with a democratic, multiparty parliamentary system. The bicameral parliament consists of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, both elected by popular vote. Observers considered the November 2019 presidential election and December 2020 parliamentary elections to have been generally free and fair.

Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: cases of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government; widespread serious official corruption; lack of investigation and accountability for gender-based violence, including but not limited to domestic and intimate partner violence and sexual violence; and abuses targeting institutionalized persons with disabilities.

The government took steps to identify, investigate, prosecute, and punish officials who committed abuses, but authorities did not have effective mechanisms to do so and delayed proceedings involving alleged police abuse and corruption, with the result that many of the cases ended in acquittals. Impunity for perpetrators of some human rights abuses was a continuing problem. Impunity was a significant problem in the security forces, particularly among police and gendarmerie. Police officers were frequently exonerated in cases of alleged beatings and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

In July 2022 military prosecutors resubmitted an indictment against former President Ion Iliescu and former Vice Prime Minister Gelu Voican Voiculescu for crimes against humanity allegedly committed during the 1989 Romanian Revolution. The High Court of Cassation and Justice previously dismissed the indictment and returned the case to the Military Prosecutor’s Office in 2021 because it included several irregularities. The case was pending before the High Court of Cassation and Justice as of year’s end 2022.

The constitution provides for freedom of expression, including for members of the press and other media, and the government partially respected this right. Independent media organizations noted excessive politicization of media, corrupt financing mechanisms, as well as editorial policies subordinated to political parties and owners’ interests. Reporters and civil society representatives said their freedom of expression was also limited by restricted access to information of public interest issued by the government and public institutions, including expenses, contracts or bids involving public funds, and the academic records of public officials. Reporters and NGOs often had to sue state-controlled ministries, agencies, or local entities to access public information. Some reporters throughout the country continued to be harassed, sued, or threatened by authorities whom they investigated or by their proxies.

According to Radio Free Europe, in the first seven months of the year, the two main ruling political parties, the Social Democrat Party and the National Liberal Party, spent together more than €10 million ($10.7 million) in contracts with specific media outlets that carried mainly progovernment coverage and avoided topics of public interest that would have embarrassed the government. In most of the cases, the reporting did not mention that it represented political advertising. Independent media reported that such practices were used during the year, as well as in 2021, and that the government allegedly spent more than €12 million ($12.84 million) on undisclosed media expenses in the entire year 2021.

In June, private TV station Digi24 fired popular analyst Cristian Tudor Popescu after he criticized ruling politicians over leaked drafts of new national security laws. Popescu claimed that the proposed laws could have given the Romanian Intelligence Service the equivalent powers of the Communist-era intelligence services.