December 11, 2016

Over 18 million Romanian citizens are called to the polls today, to elect their MPs/The Romanian authorities firmly condemn the double bombing which rocked Istanbul last night, killing 38 people

Bogdan Matei, 11.12.2016, 12:00

PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS – Over 18 million Romanian citizens are called to the polls today, to elect their MPs. Almost 6,500 candidates are running for the 466 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The number of MPs will be lower in the future legislature, after Romania relinquished the uninominal vote and returned to the party list system, which was last used during the 2004 elections.

UPDATE (18.00 hours, local time): The Romanian diaspora will be represented by two
senators and four deputies. The latest data show some 82 thousand Romanians in
the diaspora have already cast their votes. As a first, postal voting has been
introduced for the Romanians living outside the borders of the country. As
another novelty, ballot counting will be video-recorded, and the minutes will
be filled in, in an electronic format, in order to eliminate suspicions of
rigging. Eleven hours after the start of the voting, the turnout at national level
stood at some 34%. The highest turnout was registered in the southern counties,
whereas the lowest in the west and the north. In Bucharest, which is home to a
tenth of the total number of Romanian voters, the turnout stood at over 35%.
Since the start of the voting, dozens of complaints and notifications of possible
contraventions and offences related to the electoral process have been
registered at national level, the Romanian Interior Ministry has announced.
Most complaints and notifications have been registered in urban areas.
According to the Interior Ministry, no major incident disturbing public order
or the unfolding of the electoral process in good conditions has been reported
so far.

MOURNING-Romania’s President, Klaus Iohannis and the
Romanian Foreign Ministry have firmly condemned the double bombing which rocked
Istanbul last night and sent a message of condolences to the families of the
victims. Both the Romanian President and the Foreign Ministry reiterated
Romania’s commitment to the world efforts to fight terrorism. The US, Great
Britain and NATO have also condemned the Istanbul attacks. Turkey has declared
a day of national mourning after the two attacks, which made 38 victims, mostly
police officers, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Turkey will fight
terrorism to the end. The Kurdistan Freedom
Falcons (TAK), a radical group linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), has
claimed responsibility for the attacks carried out in Istanbul.

CORRUPTION– The Bucharest Court on Sunday decided to
place paediatric surgeon Gheorghe Burnei under home arrest. The Head of the
Paediatric Surgery and Orthopaedic Clinic at the Marie Curie Hospital in
Bucharest is accused by the prosecutors of having received money from the
parents of the children he has operated on. Burnei had been taken into custody
on Saturday evening. A celebrity in his field of activity, doctor Burnei is
suspected of acts of corruption, after several parents complained he has requested
money from them to perform surgeries and he has reportedly made non-homologated
experiments on children. Also on Saturday, the former manager of the Malaxa
Hospital in Bucharest, doctor Florin Secureanu, was placed in preventive arrest
for 30 days. In one of the most resounding corruption scandals on the Romanian
medical scene, Secureanu is accused of bribe taking and embezzlement in
continued form. The national anti-corruption prosecutors who investigate the
case claim that, in the May 2009 – November 2016 period, the former manager
designed and applied a scheme to illegally cash in sums of money from the
hospitals’ pay office on a daily basis, bringing a prejudice of some 500
thousand Euros.

ROME– The Italian President Sergio Mattarella
received the acting foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni at the Quirinal Palace on
Sunday and asked him to form a new government, after Matteo Renzi stepped down
following the failure of the referendum on the constitutional reform, held on
December 4, the Italian presidency has announced. Paolo Gentiloni, 62, a close of
Renzi’s, will form the cabinet and then will go to Parliament for a vote of
confidence. The Prime Minister designate has mentioned the elimination of the
effects produced by the recent quakes in central Italy and the adoption of a
new electoral law, among its top priorities.

MACEDONIA – Early legislative elections, deemed by both the power and the opposition as a referendum on the future of the country, are held in Macedonia today. According to pundits the ballot should put an end to the political crisis started in the spring of 2014, when the Social-Democratic opposition accused the conservative government of rigging the elections. The international community announced it would closely monitor the electoral process in the former Yugoslav republic, and that by holding correct and democratic elections, Macedonia will come closer to the European Union and NATO.

HANDBALL – Romanias national womens handball team is today facing Hungary, in the first group-stage match of the European Championships, in Sweden. On Saturday evening, the Romanians could not train according to the schedule, because of a fire alert in the sports hall where they were supposed to train. Romania will face the Czech Republic on December 13 and Denmark a day later. In the first stage of the competition, Romania lost 21-23, to the defending European and world champion, Norway, defeated the Olympic champion, Russia, 22-17, and outperformed Croatia, 31-26. Romanias national team is coached by a Spaniard, Ambros Martin, who last month replaced Swedish Tomas Ryde, under whose guidance Romania won the bronze medal at the 2015 World Championships in Denmark. (Translated by D. Vijeu)