Romania’s elections. One more dubious vote?

The left narrowly wins, but the result is disputed

A LITTLE fraud in Romania is, you might say, like a little snow in Siberia. Only to be expected, not really worth a fuss. But claims of trickery in the November 28th elections for parliament and president, however predictable, have been embarrassing for both Romania and the European Union. In the first place, Romania is on the verge of being promised membership of the EU in 2007. It should be now demonstrating its capacity to meet in full the EU's high standards of democracy. Second, a disputed election in Europe's backyard weakens the EU's moral authority as it resists the outcome of a rigged presidential vote in Romania's northern neighbour, Ukraine.

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which monitored Romania's elections, reported “concerns” that some voters had shown identity documents rather than registration cards at polling stations, opening the way to multiple voting. It said that this could “affect public confidence” in the result. But it thought that “administrative and judicial” remedies should suffice - not the re-run of the election for which the opposition was calling this week, or which has been demanded in Ukraine.

Any fiddles were probably too small to swing the result, even if they padded out the near-37% of the vote claimed by the ruling Socialist Party (PSD). Its centre-right challenger, the Justice and Truth Alliance, finished five percentage points behind. In the contest for the presidency, Adrian Nastase, the outgoing PSD prime minister, led Traian Basescu, the Justice and Truth candidate, by 41% to 34%, forcing the two into a run-off, to be held on December 12th.

Romania elects its parliament by proportional representation, so the provisional results point to a hung chamber. The swing votes rest with two smaller parties, the far-right Greater Romania Party which took 13% on Sunday, and an ethnic Hungarian party, the UDMR, which took just over 6%. The UDMR would happily go back into government with the PSD, or form a new one with Justice and Truth. The problem lies with the Greater Romania Party. It gets on fairly well with the PSD, though less well with Justice and Truth. But both big parties would prefer to keep it out of government, because the EU and the Americans see it as extremist.

Much now depends on the presidency. The office carries limited formal powers, but they include the right to nominate the prime minister. If Mr Nastase wins, he will probably appoint Mircea Geoana, the outgoing foreign minister, as head of a minority PSD government that relies tacitly on votes from the Greater Romania Party for its majority. If Mr Basescu wins, he can opt for cohabitation, or he may try to install a minority centre-right government that will fall in due course, paving the way for another general election.

This could be a good strategy. The PSD vote held up well this week, but the ground is shifting beneath it. It has been embarrassed by the leaking, just before the election, of transcripts of party leadership meetings that, if genuine, show that it routinely manipulated the justice system and the media. It sold itself to voters in this election as the party most trusted by the EU. But the transcripts, and the disputed vote, may put that trust in doubt.