In Pictures

Romania elections broken promises

Romania’s countryside people – far from the promises that came with each elections

Vasile Dulea, 64, has worked for 29 years on a pig farm near the village of Comosteni. For eight years after the revolution, from 1991 to 1999, he worked here as a daily-wage worker without a contract. In 1999, the farm was liquidated and Dulea lost his job. Today, all that is left of the farm are ruins. [Ioana Moldovan/Al Jazeera]

1 Dec 2016

On December 11, Romanians are expected to elect a new parliament that will form a new government. Parties and candidates battle in heated debates in an attempt to sway the electorate in their favour.

Almost 27 years since the revolution that toppled communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, Romania is still the second poorest country in the European Union. Large cities have arguably experienced high development rates. However, out of the population of 20 million, half of Romanians still live in rural areas. For them, prospects still remain unencouraging.

In Romania’s rural areas, infant mortality rates reach levels found nowhere in Europe, according to Eurostat data. Access to basic healthcare services remains difficult in these rural areas, with doctors in urban areas outnumbering those in villages two to one.

Poor road development means longer response times for emergency units. Infrastructure development in general is flawed as 40 percent of rural households are still without indoor plumbing.

Job opportunities are scarce in the Romanian countryside. Most people work on subsistance farms that are too small to be viable outside of producing food for one family. Families are also excluded from insurance and social benefits. While some do receive welfare cheques that only allow for very basic needs, Romanians are often left without support when searching for work and attempting to integrate within society.

According to a World Bank Group’s background study for the National Strategy on Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction, the relative poverty rate in rural areas is at 38 percent. One in two children in rural areas lives in poverty.

At the national level, the relative poverty rate in Romania has not significantly changed since 2008. Although the poverty rate decreased by 2.3 percent between 2008 and 2010, it increased between 2010 and 2013, with the overall number of people living in relative poverty increasing by 400,000 from 2008 to 2014.

Come election day, Romanians will have to cast their ballot and choose among candidates that have been in parliament for the better part of the past two decades, leaving many voters concerned that Romania is simply facing another round of pompous promises that will get swept off the agenda after the election cycle is over.

Andreea Seica's husband, Constantin, was the first of the family to go to the United Kingdom, where he found work at a printing house. Later, he returned to take his wife and three daughters to join him. He says there are no good schools for his girls in Gangiova where they lived, and he only wants what's best for them. [Ioana Moldovan/Al Jazeera]

A young boy rests in the shade as his family works on a melon farm. When there is no school, children are brought to the field to learn what it is like to work the land. [Ioana Moldovan/Al Jazeera]

Romania has a population of almost 20 million. Half of the population lives in the countryside. There are roughly 8,000 family doctors in cities, but only half as many in rural areas. [Ioana Moldovan/Al Jazeera]

Patients waiting at a clinic of a family doctor in Gangiova commune. The majority of patients that can benefit from health insurance are retirees and people on social welfare. [Ioana Moldovan/Al Jazeera]

Old people living in an elderly care centre in Leorda, Romania. There are 72 elderly living in that centre, being cared for by only one medical nurse and two other personnel, who work in 12-hour shifts. [Ioana Moldovan/Al Jazeera]

Costache Herescu, 72, lives in Mihai Eminescu, a village in Botosani county that has been gradually abandoned following a severe landslide years ago, leaving only six or seven residents in the village. Herescu does not consider moving to town. All his life he has worked in agriculture. Today, he has his own vegetable garden and animals to secure a living. [Ioana Moldovan/Al Jazeera]

Hetea village is home to 136 Roma families who share a single water well. At the local elections, Gheorghe Burzus, the leader of the community, told Al Jazeera that he struck a deal with the mayoral candidate, Kovács László, from the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania: He would convince the Roma to vote for him in exchange for the mayor's office's help in digging a second well. The deal never came through. [Ioana Moldovan/Al Jazeera]

Ioan Dobrescu, 78, has been a widower since 2008. He lives alone in Poiana Marului, where he takes care of his animals. His children often come to visit and bring him food. [Ioana Moldovan/Al Jazeera]

Fresh cheese being processed. With a very low pension, Costache Herescu, 72, a widower who lives alone, counts on a small vegetable garden and his animals to secure his survival. [Ioana Moldovan/Al Jazeera]

Thirty-year-old Hagi Stoican works on a watermelon field on land that he leased with other members of his family. In Ocolna, the village he has lived in all his life, out of the 1,400 inhabitants, only six are employed. [Ioana Moldovan/Al Jazeera]

Carmen, 39, bathes her son, Rares, 9, before going to bed. She has been a nurse in Gangiova commune for 14 years. In this commune there is no running water system in place, and people are still using water wells. [Ioana Moldovan/Al Jazeera]

Florica, 79, watches a speech by President Klaus Iohannis at her home in the village of Salcioara. She worked for 35 years in a chicken slaughterhouse in Bucharest until 1990, when she was forced to retire. She has a pension of 900 Romanian leu [$210], and must spend a quarter of it on her medication. [Ioana Moldovan/Al Jazeera]

Elderly women from the Clinceni commune voting during the Romanian presidential elections back in 2014. [Ioana Moldovan/Al Jazeera]

At the end of year, there is the tradition of slaying a pig for the Christmas holidays, which is maintained mostly in the rural areas. However, even here, traditions become scantier due to modernisation and the issuing of new laws and policies. [Ioana Moldovan/Al Jazeera]

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