Romanian Constitutional Court Orders Recount Of Null Votes

This decision was taken by a majority of votes in Friday's plenary session.

According to the Central Electoral Bureau report on the presidential election results, there were 138,476 null votes in the runoff. Incumbent President Traian Basescu got 70,040 votes more than his social democrat rival Mircea Geoana.

The Romanian Social Democratic Party submitted Tuesday to the Constitutional Court their request to annul and repeat the presidential elections runoff.

Adriean Videanu, vice-president of the Democratic-Liberal Party (PD-L) which backs Basescu, said his party respects the Court's decision and will take part in the recount process.

PDL president and acting Prime Minister Emil Boc said the decision must be respected, so that any suspicion of fraud could be eliminated. Boc said the votes can be recounted either by the county electoral bureaus or by the central bureau.

Boc said Basescu's term would be extended beyond December 21, when it is due to expire, should the null vote recount not be completed by that time. "If the entire procedure is not completed by December 21, the president's term continues until the newly elected president is sworn in, as per the Constitution," Boc said, adding that he hopes the election results will get validated sooner than December 21.

Basescu said the Constitutional Court's decision to recount runoff null votes is "normal and democratic" and proves that the social democrats provided ample substantiation for their complaint.

Basescu was reelected for a new five-year term Sunday. Basescu obtained 50.33% of the votes in the election runoff and social democrat Mircea Geoana got 49.66%, according to final results released Monday by the Central Electoral Bureau after counts in all polling stations.

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