Romanian polls spark press uncertainty

The results of Romania's presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday evoke a mood of pessimism in some of the country's newspapers.

"The elections have ended in an atmosphere of general confusion," writes a commentator in Evenimentul Zilei, which backs opposition presidential candidate and Bucharest mayor Traian Basescu.

Uncertainty is also the mood in Curierul National: "We have winners but no one can claim victory," it says.

Ziarul Financier believes that forming the new government "is not going to be a formality".

"Despite the deep resentment between the main contenders," the paper warns. "The ruling coalition and the opposition should... leave a door open for negotiation, or else we will be heading towards the polling booths again."

Fraud claims

At least two newspapers believe that the presidential and parliamentary elections were subject to acts of fraud.

"Romania has failed the election test," laments a commentary in the centrist Romania Libera.

We have had 15 years to make Romania a democratic nation but we haven't managed yet Evenimentul Zilei

"In our country, the meaning of democratic concepts is reversed. 'Margin of error' means 'margin of rigging'."

Evenimentul Zilei has equally little confidence in the vote count, according to which Romania's ruling Social Democrats (PSD) won over 36%, five percent ahead of the opposition centrist alliance of Liberals and Democrats.

"We have had 15 years to make Romania a democratic nation," says the paper, "but we haven't managed yet. These unforgettable elections demonstrate that we have remained at the same level of official barbarism."

Run-off

But while most of the uncertainty centres around the result of the parliamentary elections, some papers look ahead to the second round of the presidential polls on 12 December.

"In the runoff, Romanians have to choose between an imperfect past and an uncertain future," says daily Azi, referring to the link between current Prime Minister Adrian Nastase's PSD and the country's old Communist bureaucracy.

Evenimentul Zilei urges the electorate to make every vote count.

"We need to leave our laziness at home with our slippers and vote in mass in the presidential runoff. If we do not do that we need to be prepared for a future that doesn't actually include us," it says.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.