Romania goes to the polls on Sunday for the second round of the country’s presidential election.<br /><br />Prime Minister Victor Ponta, who has promised tax cuts and pension hikes, is favourite to win the run-off against the ethnic German mayor Klaus Iohannis.<br /><br />The former Communist state, one of the EU’s poorest nations, is looking to exit an IMF-led aid deal and is emerging from painful budget cuts. <br /><br />Progress on reforms has been slow; corruption and tax evasion are rife.<br /><br />The campaign has been marked by controversy over election problems concerning Romanians living abroad.<br /><br />Last week the Foreign Minister Titus Corlatean resigned over the issue.<br /><br />Thousands of foreign residents claimed they had been unable to vote in the first round.<br /><br />They complained of long queues and a shortage of official forms.<br /><br />Friday saw more protests in several cities demanding a “fair vote”.<br /><br />Outgoing centre-right President Traian Basescu won by a margin of 70,000 votes in 2009 after trailing in opinion polls, largely because he secured more than three-quarters of the 148,000 ballots cast by the diaspora.
