PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS– Over 18 million Romanian citizens are called to the polls today, to elect their MPs. Almost 6,500 candidates are running for a total of 466 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The number of MPs will be lower in the future legislature, after Romania relinquished the uninominal vote and returned to the party list system, which was last used at the 2004 elections. The Romanian diaspora will be represented by two senators and four deputies. According to the latest data, some 95 thousand Romanians abroad have already cast their votes, most of them in the Republic of Moldova, Italy and Spain. As a first, postal voting has been introduced for the Romanians living outside the borders of the country. Also as a first, ballot counting will be video-recorded, and the minutes will be filled in electronically, in order to eliminate suspicions of rigging. Thirteen hours after the start of the voting, the turnout at national level stood at 38.6%. The highest turnout was registered in the southern counties, whereas the lowest in the west and the north. In Bucharest, which is home to a tenth of the total number of Romanian voters, the turnout stood at 40.2%. Since the start of the voting, more than 200 complaints and notifications of possible contraventions and offences related to the electoral process have been registered at national level, the Romanian Interior Ministry has announced. 33 people are being investigated for potential infractions, most of them concerning vote fraud. No major public order incident concerning the unfolding of the electoral process in good conditions has been reported so far.
MOURNING-Romanias President, Klaus Iohannis and the Romanian Foreign Ministry have firmly condemned the double bomb attack that rocked Istanbul last night and sent messages of condolences to the families of the victims. Both the Romanian President and the Foreign Ministry reiterated Romanias commitment to the world efforts to fight terrorism. The US, Great Britain and NATO have also condemned the Istanbul attacks. Turkey has declared a day of national mourning after the two attacks, which made 38 victims, mostly police officers, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Turkey will fight terrorism “to the end.” The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), a radical group linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), has claimed responsibility for the attacks carried out in Istanbul.
CORRUPTION– Pediatric surgeon Gheorghe Burnei, Head of the Pediatric Surgery and Orthopedic Clinic of the Marie Curie Hospital in Bucharest was taken into custody on Saturday evening by prosecutors and was brought to court on Sunday, with the proposal of preventive arrest. A celebrity in his field of activity, doctor Burnei is suspected of acts of corruption, after several parents complained he had requested money from them to perform surgeries on their children and he reportedly made non-homologated experiments on children. Also on Saturday, the former manager of the Malaxa Hospital in Bucharest, doctor Florin Secureanu, was placed in preventive arrest for 30 days. In one of the most resounding corruption scandals on the Romanian medical scene, Secureanu is accused of bribe taking and embezzlement in continued form. The national anti-corruption prosecutors who investigate the case claim that, in the May 2009 – November 2016 period, the former manager designed and applied a scheme to illegally cash in sums of money from the hospitals pay office on a daily basis, bringing a prejudice of some 500 thousand Euros.
ROME– The Italian President Sergio Mattarella received the acting foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni at the Quirinal Palace on Sunday and asked him to form a new government, after Matteo Renzi stepped down following the failure of the referendum on the constitutional reform, held on December 4, the Italian presidency has announced. Paolo Gentiloni, 62, a close of Renzis, will form the cabinet and then will go to Parliament for a vote of confidence. The Prime Minister designate has mentioned the elimination of the effects produced by the recent quakes in central Italy and the adoption of a new electoral law, among its top priorities.
MACEDONIA– Early legislative elections, deemed by both the power and the opposition as a referendum on the future of the country, are held in Macedonia today. According to pundits the ballot should put an end to the political crisis started in the spring of 2014, when the Social-Democratic opposition accused the conservative government of rigging the elections. The international community announced it would closely monitor the electoral process in the former Yugoslav republic, and that by holding correct and democratic elections, Macedonia will come closer to the European Union and NATO.
HANDBALL– Romanias national womens handball team is today facing Hungary, in the first group-stage match of the European Championships, in Sweden. On Saturday evening, the Romanians could not train according to the schedule, because of a fire alert in the sports hall where they were supposed to train. Romania will face the Czech Republic on December 13 and Denmark a day later. In the first stage of the competition, Romania lost 21-23, to the defending European and world champion, Norway, defeated the Olympic champion, Russia, 22-17, and outperformed Croatia, 31-26. Romanias national team is coached by a Spaniard, Ambros Martin, who last month replaced Swedish Tomas Ryde, under whose guidance Romania won the bronze medal at the 2015 World Championships in Denmark.
