Some 18.2 million Romanian voters are expected to cast their ballots in parliamentary elections on December 9. The poll is a key moment in a political storm pitching the governing alliance of Social Democrats and Liberals (USL) against President Traian Basescu over the past seven months, a storm which sparked rising Western criticism of Romania's compliance with the rule of law and European values and amplified the stakes for the economic, political and international future of the country.

The main political forces battling for the votes of the people this Sunday are:

the Social Liberal Union (USL), the governing coalition formed by incumbent PM Victor Ponta's Social Democrats (PSD) and incumbent Senate speaker Crin Antonescu's National Liberal Party-Conservative Party group. USL is seen as favorite in the polls, with questions remaining about the eventual value of their majority presence in the Parliamentthe Democratic Liberal Party (PDL) - who have supported President Traian through most of his past eight years in office, but who lost government to the USL this spring - and their allies in the recently formed Right Romania Alliance (ARD), bringing together PDL and several other minor political groups. the populist Dan Diaconescu Popular Party (PPDD) run by TV showman turned politician Dan Diaconescu, who came to prominence with his outrageous tabloid TV shows on his on TV station.the Hungarian Democrats (UDMR), representing much of the ethnic minority in Romania, facing for the first time another ethnic Hungarian political group, the National Council of Hungarians in Transylvania -CNMT, supported by Laszlo Tokes. It is the first time when this split of forces could result in ethnic Hungarians' representatives failing to enter Parliament.

Thousands of candidates are battling across the country for about 500 seats in the House of Deputies and the