Romanian president may keep job due low turnout

BUCHAREST: Low turnout on Sunday for a referendum to impeach suspended Romanian President Traian Basescu looked likely to derail the effort by his opponents to oust him from office.
The election bureau said turnout was 37.7 percent by 8 p.m. (1700 GMT), suggesting that Prime Minister Victor Ponta’s leftist Social Liberal Union (USL) would find it hard to get half the electorate to vote by the time polls close at 11 p.m.
Unless at least 50 percent of voters cast a ballot, the referendum would be invalid, setting the stage for more clashes between Basescu and his opponents in the government.
Ponta’s efforts to unseat Basescu have already brought a stern dressing-down from the European Union, which accused him of undermining the rule of law and intimidating judges.
Ponta, whose government took office in May, has suspended Basescu and held the referendum to seek popular backing for his impeachment for overstepping his powers. The president is unpopular for backing austerity and for perceptions of cronyism.
Opinion polls show some 65 percent of Romanians want to remove the former sea captain from office, but the opposition had called for a boycott of the vote.
Many people were on holiday on referendum day while the temperature hit 39 C (102 F), prompting the government to set up extra polling stations, many of them at seaside restaurants and hotels, to make it easier to vote.
“Even though my wife works in the public sector and Basescu cut her salary, I will not vote and this should tell you how much I distrust the USL,” said Ionut Bragan, a professional driver waiting to cross the road in Bucharest’s sweltering sun.
The electoral bureau’s figures have a margin of error of three percentage points and do not include Romanians voting abroad, so final turnout figures could yet make it a close call.