(VOVworld) - Thousands of people rallied in cities across Romania on Saturday protesting the government’s restriction of voting rights  of Romanian living abroad in the first round of a presidential election on November 2.

People demonstrate in streets of Bucharest, on November 8, 2014, to protest against Romanian Prime Minister and presidential candidate Victor Ponta. (Source: Getty)

Protesters in the capital Bucharest and the western cities of Cluj and Timisoara called for Prime Minister Victor Ponta to resign, saying he had failed to ensure all citizens could exercise their right to vote. Outgoing centre-right President Traian Basescu called on Foreign Minister Titus Corlatea to resign although Corlatea pledged for better organization of the presidential election’s second round scheduled for November 16^th. Prime Minister Victor Ponta, a leftist, won the first round of the poll and is expected to beat Klaus Iohannis, an ethnic German mayor backed by two centre-right opposition parties, in the run-off.