EDITORIAL

The first elections the uninominal vote system may be used in are the parliamentary ones. They are to take place in the autumn of 2008 or in the spring of 2009. Given the uninominal vote system the Parliament passed and the government took responsibility for, the procedure implies several stages. A census is one of them, as Romanians are massively leaving the country, an issue I developed upon yesterday. Since the stages may not be skipped, there are needed at least 12 months since the promulgation of the law. But by organizing a referendum on his version of the uninominal vote system, President Traian Basescu wouldn't promulgate the law. Moreover, he even announced he might go on boycotting the normative document validated by the Romanian Parliament and arrange repeated referendums on the same issue. If the deadline is missed, there will only be uninominal elections in 2012. But this is also positive, since parties will this way get time to train new representatives. If the parliamentary elections fail in 2008, it will be a good pretext for Basescu to blame it on the parliamentary parties, except for the Democrat Party, in general and the rulers in particular.

The approximate figures everyone has got access to proves the President's boycott of the uninominal vote is deliberate. At least 3 million Romanians with a right to vote will certainly be abroad next Sunday, when the referendum is due. They are first of all represented by those who work in the EU states and, secondly, by those who are employed in other states. Thirdly, there is a massive nomad population, mostly gypsies, right now abroad. Maybe it is about one more million. I don't mean the gypsies who make an honest living in the West. And there are numberless Romanian businessmen who travel the world these days. And there are the tourists too, very many tourists. Very few of those abroad will wish and manage to vote, since it is indeed impossible for any government to place urns in every location on the planet. So we must cu some 3-4 millions from the 18 million people with the right to vote.

But what will happen in Romania next Sunday? If the weather is bad, there will be 15% less people to go voting. Even if it is fine, lots of families will leave for the weekend, which is common in the winter. And they won't vote. The ill will vote neither. Very few of them will write a solicitation and attach medical certificates to it. And there will be many elderly Romanians who won't vote. And there are those few millions of Romanians not interested in the scrutiny. So? There won't be enough electors in Sunday's referendum, which Traian Basescu is aware of. Therefore the boycott is deliberate.

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