Premium
President of the Permanent Electoral Authority (AEP) Florin Constantin Mituletu-Buica said that the upcoming parliamentary election can be held under safe conditions, as physical and sanitary safety rules have been established for candidates and citizens to comply with during the campaign.
"From my point of view, the election can be held under safe conditions. The physical and sanitary safety rules for the campaign, the rules for the electoral meetings have been established. Just like at the local elections, we will lay out in the next period the procedures for the voting day, so that the state of alert measures are observed in the midst of the pandemic. As the election campaign kicks off, we, the authorities, call on all the candidates and citizens to comply with the physical distancing and health protection measures established by the authorities, so that all electoral meetings are safe for both the electoral competitors and the attendance and the number of Covid-19 infections does not rise after this electoral process," Mituletu-Buica told AGERPRES.
He mentioned that, with all the rules for the election campaign set in place by joint order of the Ministry of the Interior and the Health Ministry and with AEP's approval, it all depends on the participants in the electoral process to keep things safe.
"All the citizens, whether participants in the campaign or those who get in contact with them, must comply with the protection, physical distancing rules provided for during this period and the Authority will continuously promote these safety practices, including with regard to the number of participants in the campaign (...) so as to prevent the spread of this virus," said the AEP head.
Regarding the overseas electoral process, the AEP president said that there is hope that as many polling stations as possible will be opened.
"The discussions we have with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs give us hope that as many polling stations as possible will be opened, in a number approximately equal to the 835 we had for the presidential election; we are waiting for the host states to approve the requests forwarded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for AEP to be able to establish by decision the creation of polling stations and the procedures to follow there," Mituletu-Buica also said.
He assesses the number of almost 40,000 Romanians who registered for mail-in vote as "unsatisfactory" compared to the 740,000 Romanian citizens residing abroad, and encouraged the voters to turn out to the polls.
"As always in recent times, the local elections have shown an increased interest of the citizens in casting their ballot. The turnout at the local elections was satisfactory, taking into account the COVID-9 pandemic and as always, I encourage the citizens to come to the polls in high numbers for an as best as possible representation of the elected MPs, because representativity is also given by a high turnout. (...) Let's hope that close to the voting day the numbers of Covid-positives will be on a descending trend for us to be certain that the December 6 electoral process unfolds under safe conditions for everyone," Mituletu-Buica concluded.
