The manner in which an electoral campaign progresses can be a good indication of a country’s political, social and economic situation and the developments in Romania’s recent elections paint a complex picture of the country’s dynamics. The election campaign and outcomes demonstrate the elements that have plagued Romania since the decades following 1989; corruption charges, public mistrust of politicians and political and economic instability. Even since joining the EU in 2007, Romania has done little to shed its image as a country whose political and economic instability is underpinned by corruption and a lack of transparency and the most recent presidential elections indicate a disturbing domestic continuity.

The November/December presidential elections followed several months of a caretaker government, after the former government fell in October in a vote of no-confidence. Romania’s political and economic situations are closely tied and it is hoped that with a functioning government, the country will be able to demonstrate to the IMF, who suspended an emergency aid package amid political instability, that the money should be released. But the Romanian elections seems awfully reminiscent of Moldova’s elections from earlier this year; as soon as the results were announced, it was denounced as fraudulent, with what defeated former Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana called “extremely clear evidence” of vote rigging. With a minuscule vote difference separating him from incumbent Traian Basescu (49.67 per cent to 50.33 per cent), Geoana’s Social Democrat party filed a complaint with the country’s Constitutional Court that ballot-stuffing, vote-buying, bribery and multiple voting had occurred. Fresh elections were called for and although the Court ordered a recount of 138,000 voided votes, it only found that 2,247 should be included in the tally. 1,260 were given to Basescu, with the rest going to Geoana; these additional votes were insufficient to change the ultimate outcome of the election and Geoana has subsequently accepted the results, while maintaining that the vote itself was unfairly conducted.

The Constitutional Court’s decision to order a recount of the elections invalidated votes amid accusations of vote tampering seems to validate claims by the OSCE’s election monitoring mission that although the election was generally conducted according to its democratic standards, allegations of irregularities should be seriously examined. But although superficial similarities may exist between the controversial nature of the Romanian and the Moldovan elections, one factor sets them apart; Romania is an EU member state and Moldova is not. While the Moldovan election garnered high levels of attention from both the OSCE and the EU, who condemned rampant vote falsification as contravening the democratic commitments and standards of both organisations, there has been relatively little attention paid to the Romanian vote.

For it seems shocking that these kinds of electoral shenanigans could go on in an EU member state. One would think that the democratic conditionality set for acceding countries would be sufficiently enforced to ensure compliance with basic democratic standards; free, fair and transparent elections should figure prominently in such standards. While it’s no secret that democratic development and the implementation of certain standards has made slow or incomplete progress, it’s surprising that given such a clear example of the short-comings of Romania political and democratic development, a rather permissive attitude seems to prevail in the EU. Having insisting on conditionality criteria during the accession process, with indisputably varying success, the attitude now seems to indicate that once a country is in as a member, such considerations become unimportant. As a news-story, the Romanian elections seem to have garnered scant attention. The EU has not publicly taken any steps to reprimand Romania or even to make a statement about the questionable vote-count. Even the IMF seems relatively satisfied with the results of the election, emphasising rather their optimistic outlook on the domestic situation in face of the “difficult political and economic environment“.

But it would be ridiculous to believe that after a bit of a rough year, Romania is poised to finally get back on its feet. A culture of mistrust, bribery and corruption has become synonymous with Romanian politics and the controversial nature of the Romanian presidential elections is indicative of the political, and related economic, instability that seems to be an innate part of the country’s domestic dynamics. That seems unlikely to change, as there seems to be a clear lack of political will to initiate any meaningful change. It’s shocking that the EU has not clamoured more loudly about allegations of election misconduct during the presidential elections; that such behaviour can occur in an EU member state seems in complete contravention of the Union as a bastion of democracy and democratic standard setting. The elections paint a disturbing picture of the domestic political situation and reflects badly on the EU as a whole, while giving yet another example of a democratic deficit not only in the Union’s institutions but in it’s attitude as well.