BUCHAREST, ROMANIA (AFP) - Polls opened Sunday in Romania's presidential election, as the country struggles with a severe recession and the political turmoil following the government's fall mid-October.

This is the first election of a head of state since Romania entered the European Union in January 2007.

More than 18 million people out of the population of 21.5 million are listed to vote in more than 21,400 polling stations around the country. Some 300 have also been opened abroad, especially in Italy and Spain, where there are strong communities of Romanian immigrants.

The polls were due to close at 1900 GMT.

Twelve candidates are running for the presidential office but the incumbent centre-right president Traian Basescu and his Social Democrat rival Mircea Geoana are most likely to face each other in the run-off, due December 6, according to polls.

Basescu, a former sea captain aged 58, in office since 2004, and Geoana, 51, an ambassador to the US in the late 1990s and foreign affairs minister between 2000 and 2004, are both likely to garner between 30 and 33 percent of the votes in the first round.

Basescu insists on "modernizing the state" and "eliminating the privileges of certain categories" in the coming years while his rival is proposing a "vigorous anti crisis plan". Romania's economy is expected to shrink by eight percent in 2009.

A third instalment of a 20 billion euro aid package by the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the World Bank has been postponed until a new government is formed to replace the one led by prime minister Emil Boc which fell in October.

Along with the presidential vote, Romania is also holding a national referendum to decide if it should reduce the number of lawmakers from the current 471 to 300, in a unicameral chamber.

Several NGOs contested the organisation of this referendum called by the incumbent president the same day as the presidential election, saying it was affecting the equality of chances between candidates.

As many Romanians claim disillusionment with their politicians, turnout could be less then 50 percent.

Since the fall of communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu 20 years ago, participation never ceased to decrease in Romania, from 86 percent in 1990 to 58.93 percent in the last presidential election in 2004.

In Romania, a lot of people feel they are forced to vote "for the less bad candidate" at every election, historian Neagu Djevara said in an interview with the daily newspaper Evenimentul Zilei.