The post-communist Romanian party system is characterised by two territorial divisions: the
ethnic and the urban-rural conflict. Whereas the ethnic conflict has not lost its intensity over
time, the urban-rural division was particularly strong in the elections in the 1990, and has declined
ever since. Our analysis suggests that the decline of the urban-rural cleavage is closely
related to the disappointment of voters with the political parties which they elected. As shown
in the literature, retrospective economic voting has repeatedly led to high electoral volatility
between blocs in Romanian elections. In this paper, we link this phenomenon with the decline
of territorial divisions and with the homogenisation of party strength across the territory.