About five thousand Romanian citizens from Moldova voted at the referendum on Traian Basescu’s impeachment

About five thousand Romanian citizens in Moldova cast their ballots on Saturday, May 19, at the Embassy and Consulate of Romania, choosing whether they want or not President Traian Basescu ousted from office. According to the data made public on May 21, at 10 am, by the Central Election Bureau (CEB) in Bucharest, about 44.29 percent of the voters participated in the referendum. 74.3 percent of voters said "no", while 24.6 percent supported the impeachment. At the referendum on Saturday, Traian Basescu obtained 6 million votes, by almost 1 million more compared with the results of the 2004presidential elections. According to the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, about 178 polling stations were opened abroad, where more than 72 thousand persons voted. Two polling stations were opened in Chisinau, where almost 5 thousand persons voted (4998). First Secretary of the Embassy of Romania in Chisinau Florin Lencu told Info-Prim Neo that the diplomatic mission does not know the number of persons who voted for the impeachment of the Romanian president and who voted against in Moldova. “The only institution that has this information is CEB, which did not publicise this information yet”, the cited source said. At the same time, a part of Romanian citizens from Moldova could not vote because they did not manage to enter the Embassy and the Consulate of Romania until 8 pm, when all the polling stations were closed. The Romanian media says that “due to the inappropriate organisation of the referendum abroad, responsible for which was the state secretary Mihai Gheorghiu and the minister of foreign affairs Adrian Cioroianu, thousands could not exercise their constitutional right to vote”.