Incumbent centrist President Klaus Iohannis won a second term last Sunday, gaining about two thirds of the vote in the presidential election runoff against his center-left challenger Viorica Dancila, who had been prime minister until October when her government collapsed. Iohannis has pledged to resume judicial reforms slowed down by successive Social Democrat governments. The recently updated ‘Worldwide Governance Indicators 2019’ survey of the World Bank discloses considerable weaknesses for Romania with regard to Regulatory Quality (rank 69 out of 209 economies, down from rank 62 in 2017), Rule of Law (rank 77) and Control of Corruption (rank 100, down from rank 90 in 2017). And in the also recently published ‘Ease of Doing Business 2020’ survey of the World Bank, Romania is ranked comparatively well with regard to Resolving Insolvency (56th out of 190; score 59.1 out of 100), but has deteriorated from rank 52 (score 59.9) last year. It remains to be seen if the re-elected President and the new government can live up to their pledges.
