It’s finally over, for the better or worse we shall see in the upcoming days. Selecția Națională 2022 became one of this years most infamous national finals with scandal after scandal, but now we shall see if the winner can overcome all of this and represent Romania with pride in Turin.
Selecția Națională 2022
The selection started with 46 songs all the way back in December, in February it dropped down to 20 and then it dropped down to 10 songs left after the televised semi-final. These 10 songs that now remained performed tonight in the national final and the one that could impress the televote and the five jury members, would be the one to represent the country.
Tonight’s finalists were:
- Andrei Petruș – Take Me
- Alex Parker & Bastien – All This Love
- Gabriel Basco – “One Night”
- Vanu – “Never Give Up”
- PETRA – “Ireligios”
- Møise – “Guilty”
- Cream, Minodora and Diana Bucșa – “România Mea”
- Kyrie Mendél – “Hurricane”
- Dora Gaitanovici – “Ana”
- WRS – “Llámame”
Despite all the trouble with this year’s national selection, TVR still know how to prepare a show for the audience and they invited acts from 7 of the other competing countries. These included Albania’s Ronela Hajati, Bulgaria’s Intelligent Music Project, Czech Republic’s We Are Domi, Estonia’s Stefan, Moldova’s Zdob si Zdub and Fratii Advahov, Montenegro’s Vladana and finally North Macedonia’s Andrea.
It didn’t end just there, Oleh from Kalush Orchestra, who’ll represent Ukraine at this year’s contest sent a message to the Romanian people, asking them for help and support in any possible way, followed by a performance by Jamala performing her winning entry form 2016, “1944“.
Results
The results weren’t quite revealed in the usual way. One of the problems with this national final was how the voting process would work out. It was announced that the televote would only account for 1/6th of the final outcome, while each of the five jury members would count for the same amount, taking the remaining 5/6th of the final outcome. To put it in short, it was a very confusing way of doing it, so that’s why we’ve provided a detailed result table right below.
Clearly, Dora Gaitanovici and WRS dominated the televote, and got a great head start. Since the televote barely mattered anyhow, it was just a question whether their televote lead could help them further in the competition, and clearly… it barely did anything.
The final outcome was very much with how the juries wanted it, and the only proper affect the televote had was to boost Dora Gaitanovici up to 3rd place, when the jury placed her 6th combined. Kyrie Mendél who finished 7th with the televote jumped straight out to 2nd place. Finally, WRS who took charge of the jury votes and finished 2nd with the televote, could with a rather big margin claim the winning title, and will now represent Romania in Turin with his Spanish baila-styled song “Llámame“.
What do #YOU think about Romania’s winner and do #YOU think this is what Romania needs to finally return back to the final? Let’s hear from #YOU on our forum HERE or on our social media sites.
