THE ROMANIAN government’s drive to remove President Traian Basescu hung in the balance yesterday as turnout in a referendum on whether to impeach him remained stubbornly low, well below the 50 per cent level needed for a valid vote.
The election bureau said turnout was 26.9 per cent by 5pm, suggesting that prime minister Victor Ponta’s left-wing Social Liberal Union (USL) would find it difficult to get half the electorate to vote by the time polls close at 11pm.
Mr Ponta, whose government took office in May, has suspended Mr Basescu and is holding a referendum to seek popular backing for his impeachment for overstepping his powers.
The president is unpopular for backing austerity and because of perceptions of cronyism.
The methods Mr Ponta has used, however, in his efforts to unseat the president have brought a stern dressing-down from the European Union, which accused him of undermining the rule of law and intimidating judges.
Opinion polls show about 65 per cent of Romanians want to remove Mr Basescu from office, but the opposition has called for a boycott of the vote and the USL, a disparate alliance from across the political spectrum, is struggling to get half the electorate to vote.
“I voted to take him down because he cut my pension and he doesn’t deserve to be in power,” said Sandu Neacsu, a 66-year-old pensioner from Pantelimon near the capital, Bucharest.
Many people are on holiday and the temperature hit 39 degrees yesterday, prompting the government to set up extra polling stations, many of them at seaside restaurants and hotels, to make it easier to vote.
Mr Basescu’s allies, the opposition Democrat Liberal Party (PDL), have asked supporters to boycott the vote. – (Reuters)