The presidential elections offered the electorate a variety of options and fundamental rights were "overall respected", according to a report presented on Monday by the FairVote Coalition.
The report states that the election authorities efficiently organized the technical aspects of the process and that the election day was "orderly" and without significant incidents.
"The fact that the decision to annul the elections at the end of last year was insufficiently explained and motivated to the electorate, as well as the lack of a full account of the flawed electoral process and the measures that should have been taken to ensure the integrity of the elections, have negatively affected public confidence in the process and called into question the resilience of state institutions in the face of hybrid attacks," reads the document.
According to the cited source, the elections were held against a background of distrust in the ruling political parties and polarization related to the annulled electoral process of 2024.
"The electoral legislation generally facilitates the organization of elections in a democratic manner, but the amendments made for this election through OUG 1/2025 were adopted non-transparently, in violation of some normative procedures and with too little time before the elections. Moreover, some of these amendments, including those related to the marking of political advertisements, amendments in relation to the membership of electoral bureaus and the reduction of voting time in some states affected the rights of participants in the electoral process. The elections were organized taking into account several Constitutional Court decisions and Venice Commission recommendations related to the 2024 electoral process, which have not been transposed into law for greater clarity," the report maintains.
However, the electoral administration respected the electoral calendar and adopted the necessary measures for the smooth running of the elections, but the way the electoral bureaus were set up "gave a clear advantage" to two of the candidates, while eight others did not benefit from any representation.
According to the signatories of the report, the high number of support signatures required to file a candidacy limits access to the electoral competition, and the lack of visibility of the signature collection campaigns and the non-transparent verification process "raises questions" about their veracity.
"The short deadlines for verification, the unclear legislation, the lack of investigative tools in case of suspicions and the very long timeframes for solving criminal cases reduce the efficiency of this system, which needs significant reform to increase public trust," the document further shows.
During the election campaign, the right to freedom of expression and the right of association were "generally" respected, and candidates were able to organize their campaign and get their message out to voters without restrictions.
As for the online campaign, especially on Tik Tok, "it continued to be marked by coordinated inauthentic behavior", which was noted among several electoral competitors.
"In the monitoring carried out during the campaign period, a significant increase in coordinated content of a political nature, disguised as seemingly organic content and generated by non-authentic account networks, was identified. In the absence of regulatory mechanisms adapted to the digital specificity, the phenomenon of campaign financing by third parties continues to have significant effects on electoral fairness. Expert Forum has identified two strategies to promote inauthentic content, both of which are mainly monitored on the TikTok platform. In addition to domestic inauthentic behavior, the campaign was also affected by attempts of external interference associated with Russian Federation interests.
On election day, the National Directorate of Cyber Security (DNSC) informed that numerous websites of public interest were the target of cyber-attacks claimed by a pro-Russian group; all affected websites were functional on the same day," the document states.
At the same time, the competitors did not have balanced access to resources, with the Romania Forward coalition candidate enjoying "a visible financial advantage".
"The BEC [Central Electoral Bureau] decisions can be challenged at the Court of Cassation or the Court of Appeal, but the electoral law does not define the procedures for appealing decisions with the courts, with certain exceptions, contrary to international standards. Although FairVote has not observed complaints being settled systematically, we consider that in general the deadlines given by the courts were short, at least as far as appeals against BEC decisions are concerned," the report states.
The report also says that election day was generally calm and orderly.
"The opening of the polling stations and the voting process were evaluated positively in the overwhelming majority of the observed polling stations, but observers also noted cases where the mobile ballot box procedures were not respected and cases where voters residing in another locality were not allowed to vote. Although a number of procedural omissions were observed during the vote count, the observers also assessed the vote count positively overall, and noted that in almost all observed precincts the results were correctly recorded," the report states.
Another finding is that voting abroad was organized efficiently, with multiple options for exercising the right to vote.
Comentează