Romania in limbo as election fails to find a winner
Romania looks headed for a period of political uncertainty after final election results today showed the ruling Social Democratic Party leading, but unable to form a majority government, even if it forms a power-sharing coalition with ethnic Hungarians.
None of the 12 presidential candidates won outright in elections held last weekend, amid opposition allegations of fraud, and no party secured a majority of parliamentary seats.
In the presidential vote, Prime Minister Adrian Nastase led with 40.9%, followed by Bucharest Mayor Traian Basescu of the centrist Justice and Truth Alliance with 33.9%, the Central Election Bureau said today. A runoff election is planned for December 12.
Nastase’s Social Democrats won about 37% of parliamentary seats and Basescu’s centrists secured less than 32%, election officials said. The nationalist Greater Romania Party won about 13% in both parliamentary chambers and the ethnic Hungarians scored just over 6%.
The December 12 run-off between Nastase and Basescu could prove the key to Romania’s future government since the president becomes the most influential voice in naming the administration if no party secures a majority.
Basescu yesterday called for a new vote, claiming that his party lost 5% of the vote because of fraud. He said electoral authorities awarded at least 160,000 spoiled ballots – or 2.5% of the vote – to rival Nastase.
But Nastase claimed victory, today saying he wanted to build “a European Romania without poverty”.
“We want prosperity and the modernisation of Romania. We want to enter the European Union,” Nastase said at a news conference in the Transylvanian town of Alba Iulia.
Nastase was booed by hundreds of Alliance supporters as he attended National Day celebrations marking the day when Transylvania united with the rest of Romania at the end of the First World War.
Nastase denied there had been fraud and accused Basescu of "irresponsibility". He also accused Basescu of damaging Romania’s image abroad by making the fraud allegations.
The Central Election Bureau rejected the opposition request for a new election, acknowledging small irregularities but saying they were not enough to influence the outcome of the vote.
International and Romanian observers have raised concerns about the parliamentary and presidential elections, although they have stopped short of alleging fraud.
Without a clear majority, neither party has the mandate to name the next government.
Both Nastase and Basescu have said they won’t make any deals with the Greater Romania Party, and diplomats say US and European officials have explicitly warned candidates not to ally themselves with its outspoken, virulently-nationalist leader, Corneliu Vadim Tudor.
Tudor won about 13% of the presidential vote.
However, both parties could convince individual lawmakers to quit the nationalists and join their parties.
There were reports that nationalists may support Basescu in the run-off after the Greater Romania Party’s weekly magazine attacked Nastase in its print edition today. The party is best known for baiting Jews, Hungarians, Gypsies and other minorities. Tudor’s support could tip the runoff in Basescu’s favour.
Romania’s new president will lead the country as it implements economic and judicial reforms aimed at gaining EU membership by 2007.
The president will take over from Ion Iliescu, who is stepping down after leading Romania for 11 of the 15 years since the communist dictatorship was overthrown.
About 60% of Romania’s 18 million eligible voters turned out, officials said.
