Romanian legislative election, 2004
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The Romanian legislative election of 2004 was held on November 28, 2004. 137 seats in the Senate of Romania and 314 seats in the Chamber of Deputies were up for election.
The 2004 legislative election was held simultaneously with the presidential election. According to the 2003 amendment to the Romanian Constitution, the presidential term is now five years instead of four, meaning that in the future, legislative and presidential elections will be held separately.
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Contenders
The main contenders were the left-wing alliance made up of the incumbent Social Democratic Party of Romania (PSD) and the Romanian Humanist Party (PUR), and, on the other hand, the center-right "Justice and Truth" alliance (Dreptate şi adevăr) comprising the liberal National Liberal Party (Romania) and the reformist Democratic Party (Romania).
Other significant contenders were the Greater Romania Party (PRM) (right-wing nationalists), the ethnic Hungarian party Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR), and the Union for Romanian Reconstruction, a group of right-wing technocrats.
Results for Senate
137 seats, 69 seats needed for majority.
| Party | No. of votes | Percentage | No. of seats |
|---|---|---|---|
| PSD+PUR | 3,798,607 | 37.13% | 57 |
| PNL+PD | 3,250,663 | 31.77% | 49 |
| PRM | 1,394,698 | 13.63% | 21 |
| UDMR | 637,109 | 6.23% | 10 |
| PNG | 241,486 | 2.36% | none |
| PNŢCD | 196,027 | 1.92% | none |
Other parties and independent candidates won less than 1%.
Results for Chamber of Deputies
332 seats (314 elected), 167 seats needed for majority.
| Party | No. of votes | Percentage | No. of seats |
|---|---|---|---|
| PSD+PUR | 3,730,352 | 36.61% | 132 |
| PNL+PD | 3,191,546 | 31.33% | 113 |
| PRM | 1,316,751 | 12.92% | 47 |
| UDMR | 628,125 | 6.17% | 22 |
| PNG | 227,443 | 2.23% | none |
| PNŢCD | 188,268 | 1.85% | none |
Other parties and independent candidates won less than 1%.
Apart from the deputy seats up for grabs in the election, each ethnic minority group that has not gained representation in Parliament will be given one deputy seat - 18 seats in total.
Controversies
The opposition has alleged fraudulent use by the PSD of "supplementary lists", designed to help Romanians in transit to vote. Traditionally, Romanians voted with a cardboard identity card, which was stamped when they voted. Most Romanians now have laminated plastic IDs, to which a printed stamp is affixed when a person votes. However, the stamps can be easily removed.
The opposition claimed that there were organized "electoral excursions" of PSD supporters who were bussed to various towns to vote several times. This was corroborated by several teams of journalists, who followed the buses.
The Romanian opposition announced on November 30 that they demanding a re-run of the election, because some of the void votes were allegedly awarded to PSD. They shown evidence that some people voted more than once (they found about 750 persons in three counties, but their search in the supplimentary lists would continue) and also shown that many of the minutes of the electoral comitees were wrongly completed (the sum of the number of valid votes and null votes did not match the number of votants, sometimes by a difference of hundreds or thousands of votes) and the central software not only allowed these contradictory figures, but it also added these differences by default to the PSD. The opposition announced it started a parallel counting, which shows a difference of only 2% between the two parties.
The government attacked the opposition by arguing that 'rumours of fraud' affect Romania's economy and its external credibility.
In January 2005, the IMAS institute of statistics released an analysis of the voting results in the 16,824 precincts. In the top 1,000 precincts with the most votes on the supplementary lists, PSD had 43%, while DA had 23% while in the precincts with least votes on supplementary lists, PSD had 30%, while DA had 34%. The same trend was true in the precincts with most void votes. It has been argued that this could not be due to pure hazard, and therefore the fraud was real. [1] (http://www.imas-inc.com/download/analize.pdf)
Government forming
No party holds the absolute majority, although PSD+PUR with UDMR and the other minorities hold a bare majority in the Chamber of the Deputies. On 13 December, the PUR president Dan Voiculescu hinted that they have more in common with the DA (both have a center-right orientation) and that they might break from the PSD, but one day later said he will remain with PSD. It has been suggested by the press that this could be result of a blackmail about his communist past. In any case, the Hungarians' UDMR will be part of govern. As of 15 December, both DA and PSD want to form the government.
See also
External links
- Central Electoral Bureau (http://www.bec2004.ro) (in Romanian)
- BBC News - Fraud worries in Romanian poll (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4050361.stm)
- OSCE election report (http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2005/02/4281_en.pdf) (PDF, 350 KiB)
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