To make matters even worse for the two parties in the current governing coalition, the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the National Liberal Party (PNL), both of them failed to place a candidate in the runoff round. The response of the beleaguered establishment forces was to get the country’s election commission, which the PSD and PNL dominated, to nullify the first round election results. Romania’s Constitutional Court, which the PSD and PNL also dominated, ratified the election commission’s edict just two days before the runoff round was to be held.