Ponta set to clinch Romanian election victory The former Communist state of 20 million is emerging from painful budget cuts imposed during the global slowdown. Growth rebounded to more than 3 percent in the third quarter of 2014, but corruption and tax evasion are rife, and progress to implement reforms and overhaul a bloated state sector is mixed. A Ponta presidency would tighten his leftist Social Democrat party's grip on power. Prime minister since 2012, Ponta often feuded with his rival, outgoing President Traian Basescu, which stymied policymaking and had sparked a constitutional crisis. The office of president was created under Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1974 and is a powerful position, with the holder able to appoint the prime minister, judges and prosecutors -- and also stall government policy proposals "The fact that there's unlikely to be discord between the president and parliament, as there has been over the past few years, means that the chances of reform are higher now than they have been in several years," a Capital Economics note said. The challenger, Iohannis, is a physics teacher credited with transforming the medieval Transylvanian town of Sibiu into a tourist hub. One of his two main backers, the centre-right Democratic Liberal Party, was toppled by anti-austerity protests that paved the way for Ponta to become premier. "I think Klaus Iohannis will bring Romania back to 2010, as he is surrounded by the same people who cut pensions," Ponta said in a recent televised debate. Mr. Iohannis resembles Basescu because first and foremost he is against everything.