From: mihai@sep.Stanford.EDU (Alexander Mihai Popovici)
Subject: Elections 
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 20:41:59 GMT

Some stuff on the oncoming elections from clari:


	BUCHAREST, Romania (UPI) -- President Ion Iliescu and rival politician
Emil Constantinescu appeared to be running even Thursday three days
before a general election that is expected to demonstrate how far the
nation has gone toward dismantling its former communist system.
	Opinion polls indicate the presidential race will have to be decided
in a second round of voting because the winner has to garner more than
50 percent of the vote to secure an outright victory. Neither Iliescu
nor Constantinescu is expected to capture 50 percent or more in the
first round.
	The elections, the second in Romania since the collapse of communism
three years ago, are expected to mark a substantial change in the
composition of Parliament. The Democratic Convention, a center-right
aliance of 17 parties, is expected to capture most seats.
	The Democratic National Salvation Front, a left-wing party with many
former communists, is hoping to draw strength from the rural areas,
which comprise about 40 percent of the voters.
	The remaining seats are expected to be divided among the nationalist,
whose strength has grown sharply as living standards declined over the
past three years, and about 90 other political groupings participating
in the elections.
	Iliescu, a forme high-ranking communist who won a landslide 83
percent in the May 1990 elections, has lost much of his support because
of social and economic problems. The country has an 8 percent
unemployment rate and spiraling inflation is eroding the purchasing
power of the currency.
	Constantinescu, the rector of Bucharest University, has been drawing
large crowds of supporters and appears to have taken advantage of
Iliescu's dwindling support, promising to change the way the country is
being run and pledging to fight corruption.
	A Western diplomatic source said this week that democratic process
had advanced in the last three years, although some old practices
continued ``particularly in the countryside where the same people are in
the same positions, very much as before.''
	Ultra-nationalism is also gaining ground. A presidential candidate
for the Party of National Unity for Romania, Gheorghe Funar, may score
highly with lesser educated classes with his program of national
dignity, law and order and an emphasis on traditional heroes.
	Opinion polls show he will win less than 20 percent of the vote and
be eliminated in the first round.


	BUCHAREST, Romania (UPI) -- Romanian voters went to the polls Sunday
with Romanian President Ion Iliescu holding only a single point
advantage over his main rival, geologist Emil Constantinescu, reports
said.
	Romania's electorate of 16.4 million had six presidential candidates
to choose from. By 10:00 a.m. local time Sunday about 15 percent of the
electorate had cast their votes, Radio Bucharest reported.
	Iliescu, president since the bloody overthrow of Stalinist dictator
Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989, has seen his popularity plummet since he came
to office in the first free elections in May 1990.
	The 62-year-old former communist, once considered the hero of the
revolution, collared an overwhelming 83 percent of the vote in 1990. But
now his National Salvation Front will be lucky to scrape into office at
the presidential and parliamentary elections, polls said.
	Earlier this week, a poll compiling the results of all polls since
the start of the 60-day campaign put Ilisescu one point ahead of geology
professor Constantinescu.
	Constantinescu, 53, heads the 17-party center-right alliance of the
Democratic Convention, which formed last December and won large gains in
the February local elections.
	Constantinescu promises to end the ``moral misery'' facing Romania's
23 million people with more radical reforms, but it is not clear how he
will fund his program.
	But most people see a vote for Constantinescu as a break with the
past and a chance to prove that Romania has finally dismantled its
communist structure.
	``Constantinescu is our only hope for change, if we really want a
democracy,'' said 63-year-old supporter Liance Ortanta.
	A run-off election between the two main candidates has been predicted
and would be held in two weeks.
	While Iliescu argues that his cautious rule has spared Romania the
tragedies engulfing the neighboring Yugoslav republics and Moldova, his
critics point to his communist past and the disastrous Romanian economy,
which is struggling with 200 percent inflation and 8 percent
unemployment.
	Some of Iliescu's support also has been siphoned off into the
campaign of ultra-nationalist Gheorge Funar, who is running on a ticket
of ``national dignity, God and a restoration of the agricultural and
industrial levels of pre-1989.''
	Funar, however, was not expected to poll more than 20 percent of the
vote and does not figure to make a run-off election. Noneof the other
candidates was expected to poll more than 10 percent of the vote.
	In the parliamentary elections, Romanians must choose from among 84
parties to fill the 328 seats in the lower Chamber of Deputies and 143
seats in the Senate.
	Western diplomatic sources this week said the electoral campaign has
been democratic and that Western governments could work with any
government except the extreme right wing.