Over 9.4 million Romanians (52.34%) voted in the parliamentary election on Sunday 1st December: the highest turnout in the last twenty years. The ballot took place between the first (24th November) and the second round (8th December) of the presidential election. Such a high turnout to the polls, the experts explain, is a counter-reaction to the sovereigntists that pushed the independent candidate Calin Georgescu to the top in the first round of the presidential election. After the publication of the final results of the parliamentary election the evening of December 2nd, alliances have already been announced for the two Houses. The new Parliament will be composed of social democrats (86 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, 36 in the Senate), sovereigntists (115 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, 49 in the Senate), liberals, progressives and a Hungarian minority, which taken together will take 111 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 51 in the Senate, as well as 19 seats in the Chamber of Deputies for other national minorities. “It is a fragmented Parliament”, Teodor Baconschi, formerly Romania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs (2009-2012) and Ambassador to the Holy See (1997-2001), commented for SIR. “Now, the split is between sovereigntist and pro-EU/NATO parties. We hope all politicians will be more united, so that Romania will not derail from its fate as a Western country”. The Romanian press mentions sociologist Gelu Duminica of the University of Bucharest: “It could have been much worse! The message is clear: the political class must reform. And civil society must speed up its journey to democratisation”.