Little participation on the second day of voting in the homophobic referendum in Romania
The referendum that aims to block unions of same-sex couples in Romania began today its second day after a low participation and a palpable disinterest during the day yesterday, although it is expected that the flow of voters increase in the coming hours.
The consultation aims to amend the Constitution so that marriage is not defined, as now, as a union between two people but between a man and a woman, to prevent a hypothetical future legalization of homosexual marriage.
The polling stations reopened their doors at 07.00 local time (04.00 GMT) without notable incidents, according to the Ministry of the Interior, and will close at 9.00 pm (18.00 GMT), at which time the survey will be announced. urn's foot
Only 7.24% of Romanians had moved to the polls until 10.00 local time this Sunday, reported the Central Electoral Office (BEC), which jeopardizes the validity of the query, since it needs at least 30% of the votes of some 19 million citizens.
However, a considerable increase is expected after the Sunday Mass, wrote sociologist Barbu Mateescu on his Facebook profile.
The expert believes that participation should reach at least 16.2% at 1:00 pm so that the consultation has some opportunity to be valid.
A recent poll by the demoscopic company CURS put the likely share at 34%, stating that 90% of the participants would vote in favor of changing the Constitution.
The religious movements that have called the plebiscite reached three million years ago about 3 million signatures in favor of the consultation.
Although some deputies of the National Liberal Party (PNL) expressed their opposition to the referendum, the leader of this formation, Ludovic Orban, aware of the importance of the rural vote in the elections, yesterday deposited his ballot considering that the referendum issue "is extremely important".
"The referendum is the strongest option of democracy through which each citizen can express himself directly on the decisions that society takes," Orban said as he left the electoral college.
The president of the Salvado Romania Union, Dan Barna, assured on Facebook that the low participation has shown that "citizens think it is a useless referendum" and that "it is an issue with which society is not identified to a large extent".
Although it has not pronounced itself in an official way regarding the referendum, it is expected that the president, Klaus Iohannis, will also vote in Sibiu, his hometown, according to sources close to the Mediafax agency.
