Next Romanian parliamentary election

Next Romanian parliamentary election

←  2024 On or before 26 November 2028
All 136 seats in the Senate All 331 seats in the Chamber of Deputies 69 S and 166 D seats needed for a majority
First party Second party Third party   Leader Sorin Grindeanu George Simion Ilie Bolojan Party PSD AUR PNL Leader since 20 May 2025 [a] 1 December 2019 12 July 2025 Leader's seat D – Timiș D – Bucharest S – Bihor Last election 36 S / 86 D 28 S / 63 D 22 S / 49 D   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Dominic Fritz Diana Șoșoacă Anamaria Gavrilă Party USR SOS RO POT Leader since 13 June 2025 30 May 2022 31 July 2023 Leader's seat n/a n/a [b] D – Hunedoara Last election 19 S / 40 D 12 S / 28 D 7 S / 24 D   Seventh party Eighth party   Leader Hunor Kelemen Varujan Pambuccian [c] Party UDMR Minority parties Leader since February 2011 21 October 1996 Leader's seat D – Harghita D – Nationwide [d] Last election 10 S / 22 D – S / 19 D
Prime Minister before election Ilie Bolojan PNL Prime Minister after election TBD

The next Romanian parliamentary election will take place on a Sunday before 30 November 2028. ^[2]

Background

After the 2024 Romanian parliamentary election, a pro-European coalition was formed between the centre-left Social Democratic Party, the centre-right National Liberal Party, the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania and ethnic minority parties. ^[3] The liberal reformist Save Romania Union party also initially signed an agreement to enter government, but subsequently went into opposition. ^{[4] [5]} Following the results of the first round of the presidential election in May 2025 in which government-endorsed Crin Antonescu failed to advance to the run-offs, Ciolacu announced that Social Democratic Party would leave the coalition and resigned from the position of prime minister; Ciolacu stated that after seeing how Romanians had voted, "the governing coalition has no legitimacy, at least in this component"; at the same time, PSD ministers remained in the government on the interim basis. ^[6] On 6 May 2025, interim President Ilie Bolojan appointed Cătălin Predoiu to serve as interim Prime Minister. ^[7] The presidential election was won by Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan, who appointed Ilie Bolojan as the next Prime Minister on 23 June, leading a grand coalition with the same parties and Save Romania Union.

Electoral system

Both the 331 members of the Chamber of Deputies as well as the 136 members of the Senate are elected in 43 multi-member constituencies based on Romania's 41 counties, the Municipality of Bucharest, as well as the Romanian diaspora using party-list proportional representation. Law no. 208/2015 outlines that each constituency is to be awarded one deputy every 73,000 people and one senator every 168,000 people in accordance with the population data collected on 1 January of the previous year by the National Institute of Statistics (INS). Constituencies cannot have less than 4 deputies and 2 senators. ^[8]

Parties must pass a threshold of 5% of the national vote or at least 20% of the vote in four constituencies. Electoral alliances must pass a higher threshold, namely 8% for those with two member-parties, 9% for three and 10% for alliances of more. Further seats (currently 19) can be added in the Chamber of Deputies for ethnic minority groups that compete in the elections and pass a lower threshold (5% of the votes needed to win a seat in the lower chamber, calculated by dividing the number of votes of parties, alliances and independent candidates that passed the threshold by the amount of seats that they won). ^[9]

Following the elections, seats are allocated to the candidates of successful parties and lists in several stages, starting with constituencies, where seats are distributed according to the Hare quota of the constituency. Unused votes are then transferred and congregated at the national level, where remaining seats are distributed using the D'Hondt method, to ensure overall proportionality between a party's national vote share and its share of parliamentary seats. These remaining seats are then allocated to party candidates within the constituencies, based on the party results in each constituencies. ^{[10] [11]}

Opinion polls

Political polling in Romania has generally been associated with higher error rates compared to the European average. Among Romanian pollsters, INSCOP has recorded the lowest pre-election error rate at 14.0%, while CSPS (Centrul pentru Studii Politice și Sociologice) has been identified as having the highest, at 60.0%. Marius Lulea, the owner of CSPS, previously served as the first vice president of a political party. Several reports have also documented connections between certain pollsters and political actors. ^{[12] [13]}

Party polls

Date	Poll source	Sample size	PSD	AUR	PNL	USR	SOS	POT	UDMR	PMP	FD	REPER	SENS	DREPT	Others	Lead
5–19 Sep 2025	CURS	1,100	23	34	16	12	5	3	5	—	—	—	—	—	2	11
9–18 Sep 2025	Avangarde	1,300	19	41	13	12	2	2	6	1	1	—	—	1	2	22
1–9 Sep 2025	INSCOP	1,103	17.9	40.8	15.2	12.8	2.8	3.3	4.0	—	—	—	2.1	—	1.2	22.9
21–23 Jul 2025	Sociopol	1,002	21	38	15	12	1	2	5	—	1	1	3	—	1	17
15–23 Jul 2025	INSOMAR	1,012	17.0	36.5	14.4	13.2	1.9	2.5	4.9	0.7	—	0.5	—	0.7	7.7	19.5
10–12 Jul 2025	FlashData	7,500	18.0	38.0	16.0	16.0	1.5	0.5	4.5	—	—	—	—	—	5.5	20.0
4–10 Jul 2025	CURS	1,067	20	38	15	12	4	4	5	—	—	—	—	—	2	18
20–26 Jun 2025	INSCOP	1,150	13.7	40.5	17.3	13.1	1.9	4.2	5.2	—	—	—	2.4	—	1.9	23.2
26–30 May 2025	INSCOP	1,150	17.4	38.1	16.0	12.2	2.5	3.2	4.5	—	—	—	3.3	—	2.8	20.7
26–30 May 2025	CURS	1,287	24	35	14	14	5	2	5	—	—	—	—	—	1	11
26–28 May 2025	Sociopol	1,001	17	36	14	12	2	3	6	—	2	2	3	—	3	19
23–28 May 2025	Avangarde	1,300	20	32	16	15	4	3	5	1	1	—	—	1	2	12
24–26 Apr 2025	FlashData	7,500	19	26	15	9	2	3	4	—	—	—	—	—	22	7
3–5 Apr 2025	FlashData	7,500	18.5	27.0	13.0	14.0	3.5	4.0	3.0	—	—	—	—	—	17.0	8.5
24–28 Mar 2025	Verifield	1,100	21.2	31.7	15.0	12.9	3.6	7.0	5.1	—	—	1.2	0.8	0.6	0.9	10.5
14–16 Feb 2025	FlashData	7,500	21.2	27.9	12.3	19.0	5.6	6.7	3.4	1.1	0.6	1.1	—	—	1.1	6.7
21–25 Jan 2025	CURS	1,100	24	22	15	13	5	10	5	—	—	—	—	—	6	2
10–16 Jan 2025	Avangarde	1,354	22	29	13	13	8	5	4	3	2	—	—	—	1	7
1 Dec 2024	2024 Chamber election	—	21.96	18.01	13.20	12.40	7.36	6.46	6.33	2.05		1.24	2.99	1.16	6.84	3.95
	2024 Senate election	—	22.30	18.30	14.28	12.26	7.76	6.39	6.38	1.88		1.37	2.84	1.24	5	4

Politician approval ratings

Date	Poll source	Sample size	Grindeanu PSD	Simion AUR	Bolojan PNL	Predoiu PNL	Fritz USR	Șoșoacă SOS	Gavrilă POT	Kelemen UDMR	Dan Ind.	Georgescu Ind.	Ponta Ind.
5–19 Sep 2025	CURS	1,100	26	38	26	—	19	19	19	—	34	40	—
4–10 Jul 2025	CURS	1,067	26	38	32	—	22	19	16	24	38	—	—
26–30 May 2025	INSCOP	1,150	12.9	33.9	42.2	—	16.4	—	—	26.7	47.0	—	20.0
26–30 May 2025	CURS	1,287	36	42	42	—	27	22	9	25	57	—	—
23–28 May 2025	Avangarde	1,300	20	19	40	15	14	7	—	—	44	22	—

National approval rating

Polling firm	Fieldwork date	Sample size	Is Romania going on a good path/direction?
			Y	N	?	Net
			Approval	Disapproval
Avangarde	Jul–Sep 2025	1,300	21.0	74.0	5.0	−53.0
			23.0	73.0	4.0	−50.0
			27.0	66.0	7.0	−39.0
FlashData	10–12 Jul 2025	7,500	23.0	71.0	6.0	−48.0
CURS	4–10 Jul 2025	1,067	26.0	69.0	5.0	−43.0
CURS	26–30 May 2025	1,287	34.0	59.0	7.0	−25.0
Avangarde	23–28 May 2025	1,300	38.0	53.0	9.0	−15.0

Notes

1. (acting)
2. stood for S – Bucharest in previous election, refused to take the seat.
3. Pambuccian, a member of the Union of Armenians of Romania, has been the parliamentary leader of the national minorities' group since 1996.
4. National minorities have nationwide mandates and do not represent a specific county. ^[1]

References

1. Legea privind alegerea Senatului şi a Camerei Deputaţilor, precum şi pentru organizarea şi funcţionarea Autorităţii Electorale Permanente, cu modificările şi completările ulterioare [The Law on the election of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, as well as on the organization and operation of the Permanent Electoral Authority, with subsequent amendments and additions – Updated text](PDF) (208, 94.12) (in Romanian). 20 July 2015.
2. "Romania". IPU Parline: Global data on national parliaments. 1 December 2024. Retrieved 27 February 2025.
3. Mcgrath, Stephen; Ghirda, Vadim (23 December 2024). "Romanian lawmakers narrowly approve new pro-European coalition during period of political turmoil". AP News. Retrieved 27 February 2025.
4. "Romania's pro-Western parties agree to form a majority government after political turmoil". Associated Press. 11 December 2024. Retrieved 11 December 2024.
5. Service, s Romanian (14 February 2025). "Romanian Opposition Welcomes Vance Comments On Election Annulment". RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. Retrieved 27 February 2025.
6. "Marcel Ciolacu: PSD a votat în unanimitate ieşirea de la guvernare, prin urmare demisia mea, şi că nu va susţine niciun candidat în turul 2". Observator News (in Romanian). Retrieved 5 May 2025.
7. "Romanian PM resigns and pulls out of coalition after nationalist vote win". BBC. 6 May 2025. Retrieved 7 May 2025.
8. "Legea nr. 208/2015 privind alegerea Senatului şi a Camerei Deputaţilor, precum şi pentru organizarea şi funcţionarea Autorităţii Electorale Permanente" [Law no. 208/2015 regarding the election of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, as well as the organization and operation of the Permanent Electoral Authority]. Lege5 (in Romanian).
9. "Articolul 56 – Legea nr. 208/2015" [Article 56 – Law no. 56/2015]. Lege5 (in Romanian).
10. "Romania:Electoral Code (2015) —". aceproject.org. Retrieved 17 March 2025.
11. Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, No. 553 of 24 July 2015. Official Gazette of Romania. 24 July 2015.
12. Rogowiecki, Jakub. "Europe Elects. Truth in Polling. FINAL PUBLIC REPORT" (PDF). Europe Elects. Europe Elects. Retrieved 25 August 2025.
13. Europe Elects. "Europe Elects. Truth in Polling". Europe Elects. Retrieved 25 August 2025.