Nine Weeks Ahead of the Elections, Nastase Leads in the Polls

The political alliance of the Social Democrat Party and the Romanian Humanist Party on the one hand and the one of the National Liberal Party and the Democrat Party on the other hand are the main two challengers for the parliamentary fall election.

So are their respective candidates, Adrian Nastase and Theodor Stolojan, the main two challengers of the presidential elections, the INSOMAR polling institute found.
If elections were to take place next Sunday, the SDP-RHUP National Union would take 36% of the votes, while 31% would go to the NLP-DP Justice and Truth Alliance.
The rest of the votes would be parted between the Greater Romania Party (9%), the Democrat Union of Hungarians in Romania (5%), the New Generation Party (1%) and the National Peasant Christian Democrat Party (1%).
Some 16% of the people answering the poll said they are not yet decided whom to vote with.

The presidential line-up looked like this: Adrian Nastase took 41% of the vote intentions, followed by Theodor Stolojan, with 28% of the votes, Corneliu Vadim Tudor [leader of the GRP] - with 9% of the votes, Gigi Becali - with 2% of the votes and Lia Roberts - with 1% of the votes [Lia Roberts, the Romanian born American citizen announced a day before that she opts out of the presidential race].
Some 14% of the people questioned by pollsters said they were not yet decided on whom they will vote for a president.

As for the likely PM, Mircea Geoana [current SDP foreign affairs minister] takes 48% of the votes, with Traian Basescu [DP leader, elected Bucharest mayor this spring] coming next with 28% of the votes, and Theodor Stolojan with 7% of the votes. Other 7% of the respondents said they will go for another person as PM than those listed by the pollsters in their question.
Other options went to Adrian Nastase - 5% of the votes, Corneliu Vadim Tudor and Ion Iliescu [current Romanian President] - with 2% of the votes each.
Though Calin Popescu Tariceanu was mentioned by the NLP-DP Alliance as a possible choice for the PM office, he did not get one percentage point in this survey.

On the scale measuring the trust people place in political promises made by various politicians Mircea Geoana came first, with 51.3% of the votes, Adrian Nastase - second, with 46.6% of the votes, Traian Basescu - third, with 42.9% of the votes, Theodor Stolojan - fourth with 42.5% of the votes, Ion Iliescu - fifth, with 37% of votes, Corneliu Vadim Tudor - sixth, with 16.1% of votes, Calin Popescu Tariceanu - seventh, with 7.7% of votes, and Adrian Videanu [ another name on the NLP-DP Alliance for likely PMs] - eight, with 5.4% of votes.

As for their political convictions, the respondents said they lean towards social-democracy (47%), liberalism (31%), Christian-democracy (14%), nationalism (6%) and communism (2%).
When asked where they place themselves on the political spectrum, 36% said they are at the center, 19% said they lean to the center-right, and 18% said they lean to the center-left. Some 14% said they lean to the right, and 13% said they lean to the left.

The INSOMAR polling institute conducted the survey between 22 and 25 September on a sample of 1,114 people from 50 urban areas and 53 rural areas all over Romania. The error is deemed to stay within 3%.