The PSD/Humanist left-wing coalition has seen rapid economic growth over the past few years, but has been dogged by accusations of corruption and graft (Sounds like the U.S. Democrats circa 1952...lol). Additionally, there have supposedly been mild human rights violations, but Freedom House still considers Romania a free country, with ratings in both civil and political liberties comparable to Taiwan in its current multi-partisan era. These violations don't surprise me at all, as the PSD still has the odd Stalinist-era knuckle-dragger in toe. Urban voters voted for the centrist opposition coalition due to the popularity of Bucharest's mayor, its Presidential candidate, along with a desire for rapid economic reform (Read: Privatisation. Though I imagine Romania would still have a public sector larger than even Bev Meslo would find fathomable.).
Rural voters, concerned that liberalisation would further increase the gap betwween the rural and urban standard of living, stayed with the left.
(This phenomenon was also evident in India's recent election, where the BJP's coalition of affluent middle-class urbanites and religious fundamentalists (A seemingly contradictory alliance which led to such oddities as a coalition that included both avowedly anti-religion libertarian parties and parties with ties to fascist Hindutva groups implicated in the massacres of Muslims in Bombay and in othe rparts of India.) was ousted by impoverished rural voters in favour of a coalition consisting of the benignly authoritarian and centre-left Indian National Congress, the social-democratic Samajwadi Party, and a couple of communist self-described Marxist-Leninist parties.)
The neo-Nazi Greater Romania party fell from over 20% support to the near-single digits, which is key to the development of Romania's democratic system as it's allowing for the rise of a viable centrist coalition that will keep the left on its toes. (Interstingly, the centrists seem to be more gay-friendly than the leftists, which may have added add cosmopolitan flair that helped them in the cities but hurt them rurally. Though one wonders about the mindset of a gay-unfriendly policy that claims to he Humanist, given that every other humanist party I've seen is an extremely secular and socially liberal party whose main differences from the NDP or your typical Scandisocialist party lies in the rhetoric rather than the policies.)
[ 29 November 2004: Message edited by: NDP Newbie ]