Romania’s president to face socialist opponent in December runoff election

Romania’s president, rival in runoff election

BUCHAREST, Romania — Romania’s centrist president will face a socialist former foreign minister in a Dec. 6 runoff election, partial results showed Monday, in a race key to helping the country emerge from a political and economic crisis.

President Traian Basescu received 32.7 percent of the vote, while Mircea Geoana won 30.1 percent, election authorities said in first official results based on around 85 percent of the vote counted in an election tainted by accusations of fraud.

Conservative opposition leader Crin Antonescu polled 20.3 percent, finishing third in a field of 12 candidates — and vowed that he would most likely throw critical support behind Geoana.

Romania’s government collapsed last month amid squabbling between the two-party coalition, and the International Monetary Fund has delayed access to a euro1.5 billion ($2 billion) bailout loan while the country struggles to set up a new government.

The president is key to reviving the government because he nominates a prime minister, who Parliament must then approve and who would be responsible for forming a new coalition.

Geoana and Basescu need the support of Antonescu’s voters to have a hope of securing victory. Although ideologically, Antonescu and Basescu are closer, Antonescu’s party argues that Basescu is a divisive and untrustworthy figure who wants to control parliament and the government.

Antonescu ruled out any cooperation with Basescu, calling him a “demagogue and a populist.” He said he would back Geoana, who leads the Social Democrats, as “the lesser of two evils” if his party agreed to appoint the mayor of the city of Sibiu as prime minister over a coalition government with his Liberal Party.

Geoana immediately agreed to Antonescu’s request. Basescu wants to form a government from the Democratic Liberal party he used to lead.

Reports of possible fraud in Sunday’s election emerged as far more people than normal cast ballots at 3,500 special voting centers that were set up for Romanians who need to vote outside their area of residence because they are traveling.

The Electoral Committee said more than 479,000 people voted at such locations. Witnesses claimed some were being bused there after already having cast ballots elsewhere.

Vadim Zhdanovich, who headed the election observers for the Organization for Security and Cooperation, called the elections “generally fair” but said there were flaws that undermined the process, notably the special voting centers.

Basescu and Geoana called the election one of the most important votes in Romania since 1989 and the fall of communism.

Basescu, who no longer belongs to a political party because of constitutional requirements, has lost some public support because of his stormy relationship with Parliament and the country’s deep economic crisis.

Romania’s economy is expected to shrink about 8.5 percent this year. Unemployment in Romania, one of Europe’s poorest countries, already stands at 7.1 percent, up 3 percent in the last year.

Voters also took part in a binding referendum Sunday asking if they want to reduce the number of lawmakers in Parliament and abolish one of its two houses. Basescu, who called the referendum, wants a one-chamber Parliament with a maximum of 300 lawmakers, down from the current 471.

Critics say the president would have too much power over a smaller parliament. Partial results showed Romanians overwhelmingly backing the reduction.

Associated Press writer Alina Wolfe Murray in Bucharest contributed to this report.