What the newspapers say: November 22, 2007

The uninominal vote seems to have an uncertain future. Days before being forced by the law to either promulgate or return to the Parliament the Uninominal vote law, president Basescu sent the draft to the Constitutional Law, claiming it comes against basic constitutional principles.

With a referendum on the uninominal voting system scheduled for November 25, about which everyone knows that it won’t gather enough electors to be validated, the new system is close to becoming a classified subject.

„Basescu blocks Tariceanu’s uninominal voting system”, Evenimentul Zilei reads, discussing the move president Basescu made four days before the referendum, although Prime Minister Tariceanu and his cabinet assumed responsibility for the project.

Basescu says the new system allows the „re-distribution of mandates” to politicians on supplementary lists, that no one voted for.

As if it wasn’t enough, Gandul found other flaws in the law. Also only days before the referendum and the European Parliament elections, the Central Electoral Office (BEC) modified a law, allowing electors to vote in more than just one voting poll.

The rule forcing electors to sign a statement, in which they declare they didn’t vote elsewhere was erased over night.

Along with the fuss around the elections and the referendum, the Justice isn’t going any better. Controversial minister Tudor Chiuariu blundered again, claiming that the European Union is responsible for the slow pace of fighting corruption in Romania. According to Chiuariu, the National Anti-Corruption Prosecution Office (DNA) is a bureaucratic, inefficient institution.

EU repeatedly emphasized its support for the DNA activity, showing that the existing investigations must be let to a resolution. The Judges’ Association and the Judges’ Supreme Council took stand and said that Chiuariu’s opinion is purely personal, Romania Libera reads.

Also in the Justice system, Cotidianul finds that Chiuariu signed an ordinance which allows jurists to become judges through a simple interview, without this being followed by any professional training or contest. The paper even publishes the transcription of some „interviews” in which judges even help the jurists answer or answer for them.

The cherry on top of today’s press comes from Romania Libera, where Gunther Krichbaum, head of the German Parliament’s EU affairs commission says that speaker in the Romanian House of Deputies, Bogdan Olteanu, should have resigned after he accused the US ambassador in Bucharest, Nicholas Taubman, of corruption.

„Such statements are unacceptable and not worthy of a speaker in the House of Deputies”, says Krichbaum.