Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 22, 1990 TAG: 9005220033
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BUCHAREST, ROMANIA LENGTH: Medium
The main opposition parties charged results of Sunday's balloting were rigged, called Romania's first attempt at democratic voting a failure, and said they would contest the elections in court.
Ion Ratiu, the National Peasants' Ratiu Party's presidential candidate, said he would take legal action to have the election declared "null and void."
He vowed to fight "against the renewal of Communism in Romania," which he said Iliescu represents.
Iliescu, 60, came to power in the December revolution against Nicolae Ceausescu and was the heavy pre-election favorite. He drew huge campaign crowds, especially in the countryside where he was seen as the man who saved Romania from the Communist dictator.
The campaign occasionally turned violent, but no major incidents were reported Sunday.
First official results published by the state news agency Rompres suggested an overwhelming win for Iliescu.
Most official results were not expected until Wednesday because of the heavy turnout, estimated at more than 85 percent of the 16 million eligible voters, and the complicated ballot, which contained more than 30 pages.
The dispute among the 500 foreign observers centered on whether a series of irregularities added up to unacceptable election violations.
Gov. Garrey E. Carruthers, R-N.M., the official U.S. government observer, called the poll "a good election" and "a very giant step toward democracy."
Austrian parliamentarian Andreas Khol, general secretary of the European Democratic Union, disagreed, saying: "These were a big step toward free and democratic elections, but they were not free and not democratic elections."
Carruthers asked the Romanian government to set up a mechanism to investigate allegations of fraud and irregularities.
Prime Minister Petre Roman, a prominent member of Iliescu's governing National Salvation Front, said later the Central Electoral Bureau had set up a commission to investigate alleged improprieties.
"Already some fraud was discovered," he told The Associated Press, citing as an example what he said were 25 ballots pre-stamped for the National Liberals' candidate, Radu Campeanu.
Rompres said that with 6.7 million votes counted, Iliescu had 87 percent; Campeanu 10 percent, and Ratiu, 3 percent.
Its vote report also had the Front winning nearly two-thirds of the seats in Parliament so far.
A onetime Communist official who opposed Ceausescu in 1971, Iliescu gained sympathy for being demoted and was far better known and popular than either Campeanu or Ratiu, who spent decades in exile.
Iliescu won wide support from peasants by permitting them to own large plots of land. Industrial workers, about 40 percent of Romania's labor force, liked his pledges to move slowly in transforming Romania's state-controlled economy to a capitalist free market.
by CNB