All newspapers today read about yesterday's elections and like every other elections, fraud accusations are put forward. For these elections, the difference between turnouts in the cities versus villages was lower than four years ago, in 2004 - sociologists are "blaming" the crisis and the internet for this mobilization. The Social Democrats seem to have a major advantange as there were many counties voting them that mobilized yesterday.
Four survey institutes forecast that incumbent President Traian Basescu won the first election round closely followed by Social Democrat Mircea Geoana which means that Romanians will have to choose one the candidates as President in the second round on December 6.
53.2% of the citizens cast a vote yesterday, the Central Electoral Office announced after voting sections were closed. Estimates reveal that Basescu got 32.8% of the votes followed by Mircea Geoana with 31.2% and Liberal Antonescu with 22.2%.
As with every elections, fraud accusations sprang out. Cotidianul reads that there were plenty of frauds, mainly due to the lack of proper organization. Many committee presidents were not trained as it should, some were not selected according to criteria and the legislation regulating elections changed too many times.
Nonetheless, there were many other frauds which were orchestrated, the paper reads. In a village nearby Bucharest, three members of the electoral committee got a penal file after two voters received two ballots.
Deputy mayor Ion Mihalcea, in Stefanesti was fined with 25,000 lei for taking people to local voting sections. Plus, there were many dead people who cast a vote in these elections. In Fagaras, two people are investigated by the police after they were seen offering 20 lei in exchange for a certain vote.
Romania libera reads that there were many
