Persistențe și discontinuități ideologice și discursive în scrutinele prezidențiale din România postcomunistă
Ideological and discursive discontinuities and persistence in the presidential elections from post-communist Romania)

Summary/Abstract: The 2019 elections, both the spring European elections and November presidential ballot, were depicted as high-stakes test for Romanian democracy in the after math of a turbulent two-year populist PSD government fraught with massive street protest, political unrest, cyclical tensions between Romanian authorities and Brussels andallegation of undermining of the rule of law. The framework of a democratic reversal, tapping into the wider European discussion on populism and illiberal democracies, was undoubtedly fruitful for civic mobilization but might obfuscate certainnational political and ideological dynamics that hold the key to a better understanding of the Romanian reality. The present article is comprised of a quantitative statistical scrutiny of voting patterns for presidential ballots after 1990 and of a more theoretical analysis of the distinctive Romanian populist formula. We aim to highlight the crucial issue of presidential legitimacy, as constructing by the run off ballotage system, but also to explore the relevance of some traditional analytical categories (such as the concept of populism) for the Romanian context.

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