With less than a month to go until the parliamentary
\nelections on December 11, the country’s Permanent Electoral Authority is without
\nits president, Ana Maria Patru, who has just announced her resignation through her
\nlawyer, following the start of an investigation by anti-corruption prosecutors.
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Ana Maria Patru is being investigated for crimes of
\ninfluence peddling and money laundering related to the acquisition of software used in the
\nprevious elections in Romania.
\nProsecutors with the Anti Corruption Directorate (DNA) are suspecting that the
\nsoftware was purchased from a firm picked by the head of the Permanent
\nElectoral Authority, in exchange for an apartment and a luxury car. <\/p>\n
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More precisely, in the spring of 2008, Patru, the
\ninstitution’s vice president back then, a position equivalent to that of state
\nsecretary, allegedly asked for 210,000 euros from a company’s representatives,
\nthe price of a home in Bucharest. She allegedly got the money the following
\nyear. In exchange for the money Patru is believed to have promised the smooth
\nrunning of a contract between that particular company and the Permanent
\nElectoral Authority, and also her support to conclude future contracts with
\nthis company. For this reason, two years later, in 2011, Ana Maria Patru
\nallegedly received, from the same company, a certain amount to partially cover
\nthe cost of a luxury car. Moreover, Patru allegedly asked and received 50,000
\neuros from another company to facilitate a meeting between the company’s
\nrepresentative and the then economy minister. With the total amount that she
\nreceived, Patru bought herself a Land Rover. Given that the bribe was believed
\nto have been hidden and transferred through the accounts of a number of
\ncompanies, investigators looked for evidence on Tuesday wherever they thought
\nthey could find some. According to legal sources, Ana Maria Patru’s husband allegedly tried to
\nrun away with some documents during the searches at one of her homes. However,
\nthe police stopped him. <\/p>\n
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The professional ascent of
\nAna Maria Patru, aged 40, has been constant over the past few years. Having
\njoined the Democratic Party in 2002, she was a director of the Permanent
\nElectoral Authority – The Regional Branch South – between 2005 and 2007.
\nBetween 2007 and 2012 she was the Permanent Electoral Authority’s vice
\npresident, at the proposal of the president’s office. In 2012 she was appointed
\nby Parliament as head of this institution. Moreover, since October 2013, she
\nhas been the vice president of the Association of World Election Bodies. <\/p>\n
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An unpleasant surprise -
\nis how Romanian President Klaus Iohannis defined the recent developments
\ninvolving Ana Maria Patru. Iohannis has given assurances, however, that the
\nongoing investigation will not affect the December 11 elections. The head of
\nstate has also voiced his conviction that the Permanent Electoral Authority
\nwill continue to do its job. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Less than a month before the legislative elections in Romania, the Permanent Electoral Authority is without its president, Ana Maria Patru, who has just resigned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":70913,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[38717,38716],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-70912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-anticorruption-investigation","tag-permanent-electoral-authority"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n