Declaration on parliamentary elections in Romania 30 November 2008
The EL has carried out an analysis on the conditions under which the parliamentary elections in Romania were held on 30 November 2008. According to the EL, the fact that every candidate who wished to take part in the elections had to pay a tax of approximately 1.000 euros – which, in the case of full candidature, mounts up to a fee of 400.000 euros for a single party – represents an utterly anti-democratic measure.
Moreover, in order to be entitled to send its representatives to the polling station for them to control the voting process, each party had to pay an average 10.000 euros per department. This condition constitutes another discriminatory and undemocratic decision which transforms the wealth of a candidate into an election criterion.
Under these conditions, the EL considers that the Romanian parliamentary elections as well as their result fail to respect the rights of all social groups of society, not giving them the possibility to express their democratic voice and to be represented on a political level. By doing so, the Romanian authorities infringe one of the Copenhagen criteria, which states that all citizens of a country should be able to participate in the political decision making.
The EL therefore calls on the European authorities, the European Parliament, the European Commission and the European Council to take the appropriate measures in order to ensure human and democratic rights in Romania.