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BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) - Centrist President Traian Basescu will face a socialist former foreign minister in a Dec. 6 runoff presidential election, partial results showed Monday, in a race key to helping Romania emerge from a political and economic crisis.
Basescu polled 32.8 percent of the vote, while Mircea Geoana scored 29.2 percent, election authorities said in first official results based on some 48 percent of the vote counted. Conservative opposition leader Crin Antonescu polled 20.8 percent, finishing third in a field of a dozen candidates.
Romania’s government collapsed last month amid squabbling between the two-party coalition, and the International Monetary Fund has delayed access to a euro1.5 billion ($2 billion) IMF bailout loan while the country struggles to set up a new government.
The president is key to reviving the government because he nominates a prime minister, whom Parliament must then approve and who would be responsible for forming a new coalition.
Reports of possible fraud in Sunday’s election emerged as far more people than normal cast ballots at 3,500 special voting centers that were set up for Romanians who need to vote outside their area of residence because they are traveling.
