03 June 2008 Bucharest _ Romania's two biggest parties have finished neck-and-neck after nationwide local elections.
Preliminary results released Tuesday showed the opposition Social Democratic Party, PSD and President Traian Basescu's ruling Democratic Liberal Party, PDL, both gained about 28 percent of the vote.
The poll is being scrutinised as a guide to the likely outcome of parliamentary elections to be held later this year.
The result of Sunday's vote is a boost to the embattled left-wing opposition because senior party members, including former Prime Minister Adrian Nastase, are under investigation for corruption. The party was in power between 2000 and 2004.
About 18 million people were eligible to vote for 3,200 mayors, 40,000 members of district councils and 41 chairmen of district councils.
The vote however was marred by a low voter turnout, with less than 50 percent of eligible voters going to the polls, five percentage points below turnout in 2004.
Bucharest saw very low turnout, with only 31 percent of eligible voters casting ballots, despite the political and financial stakes probably being the highest nationwide.
Observers view holding the mayorship in the capital as a potential springboard to the presidency, as it was for Basescu, who went from mayor to president in 2004.
Nineteen candidates competed for the post. PDL candidate Vasile Blaga, who received 30.9 percent of the vote and independent candidate Sorin Oprescu, who received 30.7 percent, will meet in a runoff on June 15.
Oprescu's independent bid sparked controversy from the very beginning, when he quit the PSD after failing to earn its nomination.
After his resignation, Oprescu failed to collect enough petition signatures to run as an independent. In the end, the Appeals Court ruled that he could run. The press later found that some of his alleged petition signers had never heard of Oprescu or were infants.
In the other major cities, with the exception of Constanta and Cluj-Napoca, no mayoral candidate won in the first round.
A series of irregularities and violent incidents occurred in smaller towns, where some politicians allegedly tried to buy votes. Read more: http://balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/10649
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