The election of members for the Parliament of Europe is of no great importance, at least seemingly. Although the Romanian representation in the parliamentary groups operating in Brussels and Strasbourg can be significant and useful to national or party interests, it is still in Bucharest the great games continue to be played. I mean simply the main interests of political groups, the economic groups supporting the latter and their electorate too. On the other hand, the election of MEPs is very important at least in psychological terms. It will effect strongly on the electorate and this autumn's score will have a considerable influence over the local elections due in 2008. And the effects will also reach the legislative elections, no matter if they take place in the late 2008 or the early 2009. As far as this is concerned, there are reasons for fraud on the election of MEPs. This seems to be the right time to look into a peril such as major fraud. Or it will be too late. Together with other dailies, ZIUA pointed to a strange option of the government's. The choice for Net Consulting Company, which will play a leading part in elections, was made without any bidding. The company will provide the soft equipment for the ballot counting, the most delicate operation in the scrutiny. The programme provided by this company will actually settle the final score. Even if the programme itself is perfect, the real situation may get modified in favor of one or more parties if one or several experts are unfair. There is also the fact that the 'remains' from the groups who will fail to get the minimum 5% required will become much more significant that in the previous years. And it may turn into severe and dangerous injustice done to the electorate. What is it that makes me so cautious? Maybe the essential is not the fact that, even if partly, this company is a product of the secret services. I am trying no to pay too much attention to the fact that it employs General Macri, a successor of one head of the ex Securitate (Communist Secret Service in Romania). I am not even telling that "those who say that, since 1989, it has been the Securitate, but not the electorate who decided on elections, say the truth". It has been the same Securitate to decide it is time to change the rulers or not. The Securitate has also decided on the name of the President. The system made one single mistake: Emil Constantinescu. But he was soon dumped and driven away from Cotroceni Palace. Even if I ignore such details, there are three aspects I can't possibly disregard. The first is that after the first election tour in 2004, the leaders of the "Truth and Justice" Alliance, Traian Basescu the main member, denounced election fraud publicly, insistently and emphatically, even if they hadn't even won elections yet and hadn't even appointed a President. They did it with substantial help from Net Consulting. They even demanded that the head of the National Statistics Institute should be under criminal inquiry, because it had been him who had chosen the Net Consulting. Strangely enough, the protagonists muffled the scandal after the elections. The second idea is that Net Consulting has now been chosen again, despite all laws and current practices, to be the partner of the National Statistic Institute. Is this some reward, by any chance? There was no auction held. The third idea is the outcome we get from the few well-known market research institutes. As elections are approaching, some parties' scores are going worse, whereas some other groups' are improving. But there haven't actually been significant changes of the electorate. It looks like adjusting or preparations made in tandem with the soft equipment or the puppeteers behind it. Who is getting ready for election fraud? Is it a party making use of the rulers' idleness with the President's support? Or is it the Securitate playing on its own?

Sorin ROSCA STANESCU