Romanian elections hit by unprecedented chaos and fraud claims

Four days after the European Parliament and local elections were held in Romania, the official results are still unavailable. The news portal Hotnews.ro describes this situation as "unprecedented," while other media call it "chaos."

According to information obtained by Hotnews.ro from the Central Election Office (BEC), the formal electoral procedures have been completed, and results have only been certified in nine out of forty-one electoral districts. The news portal emphasizes that this is an unprecedented situation. In Bucharest and thirty-two other electoral districts, the votes have not yet been tallied and certified, which means that the electoral procedures have not been completed.

One of the most high-profile cases is the situation in Sector 1, a district of Bucharest, where the current mayor, Clotilde Armand, is contesting her rival's victory, the candidate from the ruling PSD-PNL coalition. Armand claims that fraud occurred and some of her support "has gone missing". The difference between the candidates is minimal.

Armand has filed a complaint to the BEC, demanding the annulment of the elections, but her complaint was not upheld. The mayor has announced that she will file a complaint with the prosecutor's office, claiming she has "mathematical evidence" of fraud.

The portal G4media.ro reports that similar situations occurred in other municipalities, where "votes went missing" or the differences were minimal, raising doubts. The portal suggests that the problems may be due to actions by the two ruling parties, which decided to merge the two elections despite the lack of transparent procedures and their complicated nature. "This seriously threatens the credibility of the vote," commented G4Media.ro.

In the case of the European Parliament elections, the partial results provided by BEC on Thursday afternoon still lacked data from five out of 19,870 polling stations.

"The grand coalition of stability PSD-PNL (social democrats and liberals) caused unprecedented chaos in the 9 June elections. Dozens of accusations of fraud, including from PSD-PNL candidates themselves, emerged. Candidates who voted for themselves received zero votes, chaos reigned in some districts, and commission members waited for days in queues with ballot boxes in the heat (to register them)," reads a comment on the G4Media site.

The author of this comment, Cristian Pantazi, believes that the responsibility for this chaos lies with the leaders of the ruling parties, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu (PSD) and Senate President Nicolae Ciuca (PNL), who "created inconsistent legislation". Pantazi claims that an incompetent PSD activist, Toni Greblă, was appointed head of the Permanent Election Authority (AEP), responsible for organizing the voting.