There Will Be Voting in the Honorific Consulates As Well

For the Romanians abroad, the Minister of External affairs, Mircea Geoana, approved the taking place of the general elections in November in 137 embassies and consulates, including the honorific ones.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) decision of organizing elections in the honorific consulates as well is based on the important number of Romanians abroad and on the existing distances, in some cases, between the areas in which the Romanian communities are and the cities in which diplomatic and consular missions exist. According to MEA, 115 voting offices will be organized in the diplomatic missions and in career consulates and 22 voting offices will be organized at the honorific consulates in Europe and North America. This way, elections will be organized at the honorific consulates in Melbourne (Australia), Wellington (New Zeeland), Firenze, Bari, Treviso (Italy), Valencia (Spain), Gotteborg (Sweden) and at 12 honorific consulates in the U.S. The voting offices organized at the diplomatic missions, the career and honorific consulates are in the Bucharest electoral district. According to the legislation, the electoral offices in the diplomatic missions, the career and honorific consulates will be made of two representatives of the Romanian communities abroad. They will be named, according to the law, through a draw, which will take place at the Electoral Bureau of Bucharest, in the presence of the parliamentary parties.

ORDINANCE

According to an emergency ordinance recently approved by the Government, "in the voting departments abroad, the political parties, the political alliances and the electoral alliances that take part in the elections can assign one delegate, Romanian citizens and having a voting right, which will be able to assist, as an observer, to the electoral process, during its entire period", all the costs regarding transportation, housing, food and other stuff are to be taken care of by the ones assigning the observers.

VOTING CONDITIONS

The Government also decided, through the emergency ordinance,0 that the simple passport can be used in order to exercise the voting right only by the Romanian citizens abroad or by the Romanian citizens that live abroad. "The Romanian citizens living in Romania who vote abroad, as well as the ones living in the foreign countries, fill in an own responsibility statement saying that they didn’t or won’t exercise their voting right in the same day using a different ID or the voting card", says the emergency ordinance.

Money, the Main Problem of the Parties

The parliamentary parties don’t rush into sending their observers to Romania’s voting departments abroad in the prospect of the general elections in November, one of the reason being evaluating the costs of this measure.

DISCUSSIONS

The SDP (the Social Democratic Party) + HPR (the Humanist Party in Romania) Union hasn’t decided yet whether they will send observers to the voting departments abroad. The SDP+HPR National Union’s spokesperson, Titus Corlatean, stated for us that this matter will be discussed by the leading board of SDP. "It would be ideal for us to have our own observers in those cities in which many Romanians live and where we expect a lot of people present at the urns. But, we will have to evaluate the financial issues and take a decision", said Corlatean.

HUNGARY

The DUHR (Democrat Union of the Hungarians in Romania) also didn’t approach this matter until now. The executive Vice-President, Borbely Laszlo, is, on the other hand, convinced that the Union will have its observers at the voting sections in Hungary. "We are sure that we will send observers in Hungary because there are a lot of persons wanting to vote", said Borbely.

ANALYSIS

GRP (the Great Romania Party) will have observers at the missions abroad were Romanians vote, but, for the time being, they didn’t set the number of representatives that will be sent abroad nor the countries. This issue is to be discussed during the meetings of the party’s Permanent Bureau taking place these days because the party’s potential concerning the members and the money has to be analysed. "We want to have observers at the foreign missions in order to supervise the law abiding - the parliamentary and presidential law - , but also in order to signal the Romanians in the Diaspora that we are concerned about them, about their problems", stated the GRP Vice-President, Lucian Bolcas.

SEARCHING

The NLP (National Liberal Party) - DP (Democratic Party) Alliance intend sending observers to all the voting sections organized abroad. The Justice and Truth (J.T.) Alliance’s spokesperson, Ionut Popescu, stated that a punctual decision hasn’t yet been taken by the leading boards of the two parties, but that, for sure, the liberals and the democrats will assign their observers for all embassies and consulates in which there will be voting sections for Romanians. Since the parties will have to pay for all the costs of these travels, the J.T. Alliance found another solution. "We will look for persons who live in the respective towns, we won’t necessarily send people from here", stated Popescu. (Silviu Sergiu, Dana Piciu, Monica Iordache).