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Romania Opposition Claims Electoral Fraud
Bucharest | 08 December 2009 |
Romania's opposition says it will contest the outcome Sunday's presidential run-off elections, claiming fraud, further deepening the country's political impasse.
Mircea Geoana, who lost to Traian Basescu, said late Monday he will ask the Constitutional Court and electoral officials to annul the vote that gave Basescu 50.3 per cent against Geoana’s 49.7 per cent. Geoana's Social Democrats, said they will meet Tusday to decide on how to move forward.
The poll outcome was a reversal of earlier exit polls Sunday night that showed Geoana in the lead, again by less than one per cent.
“Romanians voted for Mircea Geoana, but Basescu’s state apparatus is trying to make him the presidential winner through fraud,” said a senior Social Democrat member Liviu Dragnea.
“We contest the election. It is a democratic duty towards five million Romanians,” he added, refering to the number of votes secured by Geoana.
Social Democrats claim there was a suspiciously high number of voided ballot papers, and have accused Basescu of organising “massive electoral tourism” by transporting people between polling stations to vote several times in different locations.
Election observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe have urged the authorities to investigate claims of fraud swiftly, but have declared that the election was conducted “generally in line with OSCE commitments”.
Mr Basescu has not responded to the claims.
Constitutional Court Judge Ion Predescu told Reuters he and his eight fellow magistrates would rule quickly on the complaint. "It will take one to three days to reach a conclusion and communicate it," he told the agency.
But the claims, together with Basescu's victory, will undoubtedly prolong Romania's political crisis and affect its relations with its creditors.
Basescu has been unable to oversee the appointment of a new government since October, when the government headed by current caretaker Prime Minister Emic Boc, collapsed. Opposition parties in parliament have refused to approve Basescu's two subsequent nominations for the role of prime minister.
The political impasse prompted the International Monetary Fund to suspend the disbursement of further tranches of a €20 billion loan, which is dependent on the government pushing through unpopular budget cuts, and cutting the size of state administration.
