Romania’s current ruling coalition between the center-right Liberal Party and the center-left Social Democracy Party is more popular than critics initially gave it credit for, according to an opinion poll published on Saturday.
Some 44% of people surveyed in the poll said they considered the five-month-old ruling coalition “useful” or “very useful’’, with 43% saying it was “useless” or “very useless.’
When the alliance was formed in November 2021, supporters of the two largest parties and rivals voiced doubts and criticism.
But the war in Ukraine and rising energy prices which have injected a level of uncertainty into many people’s everyday lives have lifted support for the alliance which commands a solid majority in parliament.
Comparatively, the former ruling coalition between the Liberals and the centrist Save Romania Union was considered “useful” or very “useful” by 23% of Romanians and “useless” or very useless by 64%, the CURS poll showed. That alliance broke down last September.
While the survey may be reassuring for the government, politicians have a long way to go before they can win the sort of trust that the Romanian Orthodox Church and the Army enjoy. Those two institutions polled 67% and 64% respectively.
Romanians’ main concern at the moment is rising energy prices, followed by the war in Ukraine which is a major worry for 18%, the poll showed.
The survey was conducted between March 28 and April 11. A total of 2,750 respondents were interviewed face-to-face. It had a 1.9% margin of error.
