IT SEEMED like a safe bet. Mircea Geoana, the centre-left challenger in Romania's presidential election, had the money, media and political backing that he needed to win. Sleek and Western-educated, he portrayed himself as the safe consensus candidate against Traian Basescu, the lively but exasperating former sea-captain (and once mayor of Bucharest) who has been the country's president since 2004. For a few hours on December 6th it even appeared to have paid off. Exit polls gave Mr Geoana a narrow victory. He did win inside the country by 14,738 votes. But Romanians abroad cast 146,876 votes and Mr Basescu took 78% of them. The campaign was exceptionally dirty: observers think that both sides cheated. Mr Basescu's victory against largely hostile news coverage was impressive. Mr Geoana wants a rerun, but his support is dwindling. His Liberal allies now hope to form a government with Mr Basescu's centre-right Democrats.
IT SEEMED like a safe bet. Mircea Geoana, the centre-left challenger in Romania's presidential election, had the money, media and political backing that he needed to win. Sleek and Western-educated, he portrayed himself as the safe consensus candidate against Traian Basescu, the lively but exasperating former sea-captain (and once mayor of Bucharest) who has been the country's president since 2004.
For a few hours on December 6th it even appeared to have paid off. Exit polls gave Mr Geoana a narrow victory. He did win inside the country by 14,738 votes. But Romanians abroad cast 146,876 votes and Mr Basescu took 78% of them. The campaign was exceptionally dirty: observers think that both sides cheated. Mr Basescu's victory against largely hostile news coverage was impressive. Mr Geoana wants a rerun, but his support is dwindling. His Liberal allies now hope to form a government with Mr Basescu's centre-right Democrats.
The Romanian Constitutional Court on Friday ordered a re-examination and recount of votes annulled in Sunday's presidential run-off election. Social Democrat candidate Mircea Geoana lost by a margin of just 70, 000 votes to incumbent President Traian Basescu, garnering 49.7 percent to Basescu's 50.3 percent. Some 138,000 ballots papers previously declared invalid by electoral officials are to be recounted in the coming week. Though mathematically possible, some analysts said it was unlikely that the move would change the election result.
The Romanian Constitutional Court on Friday ordered a re-examination and recount of votes annulled in Sunday's presidential run-off election.
Social Democrat candidate Mircea Geoana lost by a margin of just 70, 000 votes to incumbent President Traian Basescu, garnering 49.7 percent to Basescu's 50.3 percent.
Some 138,000 ballots papers previously declared invalid by electoral officials are to be recounted in the coming week.
Though mathematically possible, some analysts said it was unlikely that the move would change the election result.
