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Abstract
The 2012 legislative elections in Romania have promoted a newly emerged political actor to the parliamentary arena. One year after its official creation the People’s Party Dan Diaconescu (PPDD) has mobilised a relevant amount of electoral support, ending third as the number of seats in Parliament. This article seeks to explain the political development of this populist party until its 2012 success. It uses a qualitative analysis based on primary (manifesto, organisational structure) and secondary (media reports, surveys) data. The analysis focuses on three dimensions: institutions (political competitors and party organisation), ideology, and attitudes (of the elites and voters).
Notes
1. The partial exception to this rule is the Conservative Party (formerly Romanian Humanist Party) which gained parliamentary seats always in alliance with the social democrats.
2. In December 2012, the single member districts had more than one winner due to the proportional component of the electoral system. For details, see Gherghina and Jiglau (Citation2012).
3. This third feature of populism is discussed at length in Canovan (Citation1999).
4. Romania has a restrictive set of conditions for registering new political parties, with 50,000 founding members required covering at least a third of the counties.
5. A shorter version of the manifesto is available on the PPDD website. It includes 20 points emphasising the most important proposals. Text available at http://partidul.poporului.ro/content/20-de-puncte-ale-partidului-poporului, last accessed 7 December 2012.
6. For more details about the organisation, see http://www.ires.com.ro/index, last accessed 8 December 2012.
7. The aggregate numbers from the exit poll are available at http://turambarr.blogspot.ro/2012/12/exit-poll-parlamentare-2012-profile-de.html, last accessed 17 December 2012.
8. For details, see http://www.ires.com.ro/uploads/articole/IRESCOP_2012_-_III__Pasiuni_comportamente_si_credinte.pdf, last accessed 17 December 2012.