The election final results will be published on Tuesday morning, but it seems that PSD-PC coalition and the PDL have similar results, 33-34% each... So no matter who wins, the key for the new government is the PNL (with 18-20%), the party from the current Prime Minister, Calin Popoescu Tariceanu. The current President, Traian Bacescu, is from the PDL.

In any case, I´m not quite sure on the influence of the crisis on the results. in fact, many people considered that the PSD would be winning the elections, so the final results, with such a little difference between PSD and PDL, is not so possitive for the PSD as it might be expected.

Electoral participation was shamefully low: national average: 36%, in Bucharest, just 30%. But with no real sense of change, no real policical views on debate, no real solutions, only the social bargains offered, higher salaries for teachers, policemen or doctors that I´m not sure can be really implemented (budgetary conceptions were not explained).

Maybe US elections are too Hollywood, too many bottled emotions and pretty scenes... But 2008 Romanian elections lack even the illusion of fresh air that we all need to feel every now and then, they were just the opposite, a bureucratic phase to be performed... As many others, you would argue, and it might be roight, but the authomatism is usually more concealed.