Under special protection measures, over 18 million Romanians are expected to cast their ballots on Sunday to elect a new bicameral parliament for the next four years.

As many as 18,802 polling stations opened at 7:00 a.m. local time (0500 GMT) and will close at 9:00 p.m. (1900 GMT) in 42 constituencies in the country, while 748 stations in 93 foreign countries remain open on Saturday and Sunday.

A total of 7,136 candidates, including those from political parties and independent candidates, are competing for seats in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. In order to enter the parliament, the parties must obtain over 5 percent of the national votes or over 20 percent of the votes in at least four constituencies.

There are 465 seats in the current parliament, 136 in the Senate and 329 in the Chamber of Deputies.

The current ruling National Liberal Party (PNL) is in the forefront of most polls before the election, and the latest survey results of four well-known local polling agencies show that three of them concluded that the party will rank first with 28.5 to 33 percent of the votes, followed by the main opposition Social Democratic Party (PSD), with 23.6 to 30 percent of the votes; however, one of the polls predicted that the PSD will win with 35 percent of the votes, 3 percentage points more than the PNL.

No matter which of the two parties gets the best score, the winner is unlikely to get more than 50 percent of the votes to hold the majority in the future parliament.

Therefore, the future government will almost certainly be a coalition one. It is generally believed by local analysts that the PNL is likely to reach an agreement in this regard with the USR-PLUS alliance, which currently ranks third in popular support.

Other parties, which may enter the new parliament, include the PRO Romania Social Liberal, the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania and the People's Movement Party. However, the 5-percent electoral threshold is not an easy task for the latter two.

The election is taking place amid the worsened pandemic situation in the country, with the number of COVID-19 cases passing half a million on Friday.

Therefore, wearing masks and maintaining social distance are rules that voters must follow in the election.