List of political parties in Romania

This article lists political parties in Romania. Romania has a democratic multi-party system with numerous political parties, in which a political party does not often have the chance of gaining parliamentary majority alone, and, thus, parties must work with each other to form coalition governments. The current system was established following the Romanian Revolution of 1989 and the adoption of a new constitution in 1991; prior to these events, Romania was a single-party state under the rulership of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR).
Since the early 1990s, Romanian politics saw a gradual decrease in the number of political parties entering the Parliament and a relative consolidation of existing ones along ideological lines. Major political parties can be roughly grouped into three main "families", more specifically liberal, social democratic, or conservative. Extremist groups have a relatively low political profile in Romania, despite a surge in popularity of far-right and Eurosceptic political parties across many European Union (EU) countries during the 2010s.
Party switching (Romanian: traseism politic) remains a very concerning and significant issue, however, as does widespread corruption, leading to an overall low level of public trust in political parties. In December 2014 the level of trust stood at 12%. To counter this perception, the two largest parties as of 2015 (namely the Social Democrats and the National Liberals) have allegedly initiated a series of internal reforms to strengthen their integrity criteria and impose disciplinary sanctions on party members investigated or convicted on corruption charges.
Article 40 of the Constitution of Romania states that citizens can freely associate into political parties, with the exception of judges, military, and police personnel as well as other civil servants which are apolitical by law. The same article bans political parties which campaign against political pluralism, the rule of law, and Romania's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Romania's party system is regulated by Law no. 14/2003 on political parties; the law initially mandated a list of 25,000 supporters, residing in at least 18 counties and the Municipality of Bucharest, for a political party to be formally registered.
Nevertheless, in February 2015, the unregistered Pirate Party of Romania (Romanian: Partidul Pirat din România) filed a complaint to the Constitutional Court, arguing that the list requirement is a violation of the constitutional provisions on freedom of association. The Court subsequently struck down the requirement as unconstitutional, and on 6 May 2015, the Romanian Parliament approved a modified version of the law, which allows the formation of a political party with 3 signatures.
The current political parties with parliamentary representation, in the order of the total number of representatives they hold as of July 2024 in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, are the following ones:
In addition, ethnic minority organizations are granted each seat in the Chamber of Deputies if: (1) are the sole official representative organization of the minority; (2) they participate in the legislative election and do not pass the 5% threshold but obtain at least 10% of the number of votes calculated to correspond to electing one deputy. These seats are added to the number of seats put up for election. As of 2021, there are eighteen such seats. The Hungarian minority organization, the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR/RMDSZ) has always passed the 5% threshold for both houses of the Romanian Parliament, and has been treated as a regular political party (and acting like one as well).
Aside from the political parties represented in the Romanian Parliament, the following political parties only have representation in the European Parliament:
The following are political parties which ran by themselves at the 2020 local elections and won elected representation at local and county level (does not include seats won on alliance tickets):
The following parties have won seats in the 2020 local elections only as part of electoral alliances:
The following parties were all active in Romania in the interwar period and, in some cases, through and after World War II. Dates of founding and dissolution are given, where known. Failing that, the earliest and latest dates known for activities are given.
This period saw the proliferation of numerous extremist parties inspired by fascism, socialism and Communism. The latter were effectively banned in 1924 by the so-called Mârzescu law. A succession of coups drastically altered the political landscape as Romania went through a single-party dictatorship under the National Renaissance Front (1938–1940), then a military dictatorship without political parties (1940–1944), then briefly returning to multiparty democracy before finally becoming a people's republic (1944–1947).
Although distinct parties in the communist era were not politically relevant, the following were the officially recognized political forces:
Other parties were allowed to exist, with unclear status, until mid 1948.