NGOs accuse Basescu of pre-election fraud

09/11/2009

Four Romanian NGOs say the president is unfairly using a referendum to boost his chances of re-election.

By Paul Ciocoiu for Southeast European Times in Bucharest -- 09/11/09

Romanian President Traian Basescu [Getty Images]

A group of four NGOs -- Transparency International Romania, Asociatia Pro Democratia, The Centre for Juridical Resources and the Media Monitoring Agency -- asked Romania's ombudsman on October 29th to file a complaint in the highest court in the country, asking to dissociate the presidential elections from a referendum on single-chamber parliament, both scheduled for November 22nd.

The four organisations maintain that President Traian Basescu, who has the constitutional right to call a referendum, will appear on electoral posters both for the referendum and the presidential elections -- effectively unlevelling the playing field for the other candidates.

"We are calling on the ombudsman, who has this possibility, to inform the constitutional court concerning the fact that the president, a candidate at the same time, can propose a referendum and also run for a second term on the same day," said Cristian Parvulescu, head of Pro Democratia.

"This seems to ensure the president's supplementary chances. It is an advantage and we wonder whether the equity in these elections, among the competitors, is respected," he added.

"It is a fraud; I would call it a moral one. We believe this is a manipulation and a distortion of the electoral speech," said Georgiana Iorgulescu, head of the Centre for Juridical Resources.

"The campaign for the referendum has already started. Judging by the violence through which he [Basescu] promotes the problem concerning the number of the MPs and the unicameral parliament, we can tell we are witnessing an electoral pre-fraud," said Mircea Toma, head of the Media Monitoring Agency.

Apart from the electoral posters used by Basescu's campaign for the presidential poll, thousands of others, featuring the president's image, have appeared across the country to promote the unicameral legislature. Some complain the messages on these posters are tough, with slogans like "They won't get away from what they fear the most."

Basescu is pleading for a single chamber parliament, with 300 MPs, down from the current 471 in two houses.

His campaign spokesman, Democrat-Liberal deputy Sever Voinescu, dismissed the NGOs' actions as a "directly political and electoral one" and said the four organisations have thus lost their political neutrality. He went further and accused the four of overtly serving one of Basescu's competitors in the presidential race.

The organisations also questioned the rationale behind the growing number of polling stations amid a constant decline in the population's interest in the elections. According to the NGOs, there were 12,000 polling stations in 1990, then 15,000 in 2004, and 21,000 this year.

The European Parliament elections in June, the latest poll organised in Romania, saw a mere 27% turnout.