Romanian opposition Democrat party wins EU vote

By Justyna Pawlak

BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Romania's opposition Democrat party won the country's first vote for the European Parliament, preliminary results showed on Monday, bolstering its hopes of returning to power in next year's general polls.

The Democrats, who are closely linked to President Traian Basescu, won 29.1 percent of votes, according to results from 85 percent of ballots.

The vote for 35 deputies to the European assembly is seen as a popularity test for leading political parties ahead of a parliamentary election due to be held in late 2008.

It showed a majority of Romanians supporting centrist groupings after broad reforms of Prime Minister Calin Tariceanu's three-year-old rule won Romania entry to the European Union in January.

But the centrists appeared increasingly fragmented following months of bickering, divided into the Democrats, Tariceanu's Liberals and a splinter party of politicians who have fallen out with the prime minister.

"The Democrats are realising that ... future battles will be more complicated than they would have expected," Alexandru Lazescu wrote in an opinion column in daily Romania Libera.

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Preliminary results showed the ex-communist Social Democrat Party (PSD) came in second with 22.2 percent, and the Liberals trailed behind with 13.4 percent of the vote. The splinter Liberal Democrat Party won 8 percent.