Parliamentary Representation of Minorities in Romania

This article aims to analyse the mechanisms through which the parliamentary representation of ethnic minorities is ensured in Romania. After briefly reviewing the situation in other countries from South East Europe, I turn to the case of Romania, where there is a clear distinction between the Hungarian minority (which established a highly successful political movement in 1989, UDMR) and all other minorities (which were only able to gain parliamentary representation through the positive discrimination system provided by the Romanian law). This system is then analysed in detail and the results of the 1996 and 2000 parliamentary elections are used as case studies. The Romanian system has clear strengths (such as simplicity), but also obvious weaknesses (hijacking of the minority representation being the most serious). The paper concludes with a discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of the Romanian system and suggests a few possible improvements