The news yesterday that the PNL-PD Alliance presidential candidate Traian Basescu's was intending to request a cancellation of the elections held on Sunday unleashed a sudden negative reaction on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE).
The market value of listed companies shed approximately 65 million euros in the last ten minutes of the trading session yesterday. Brokers say the market's behaviour tomorrow will explain investor reactions to the statements by Basescu yesterday.
Since today is National Day in Romania, there is no trading on the BSE.
The most extreme declines were seen in BRD shares, which had been on an upward course for several days, and those of the Financial Investment Companies (SIFs). BRD closed down 3.5%, largely due to the sales in the last ten minutes of trading. The SIFs had lost an average of 1.4% by the end of the day, after having fluctuated most of the time at prices comparable to those on Monday. Some shares managed to end the day slightly up, such as Petrom, which closed at 0.7% higher (up from 10.15 to 14.15).
The first news of Traian Basescu's plan to request cancellation of the elections on Sunday was published by news agencies in the last fifteen minutes of trading, and the last ten minutes saw a surge in sell orders and an average market decline of 1%. That said, not every broker got the news of Basescu's intention during the trading session. "I had no idea of Basescu's request. I noticed a large value of sales on the market with no precise explanation. This is probably what caused it," a trader with a brokerage firm said yesterday.
The market had been calm during the early hours of trading, fluctuating slightly with no obvious trends of growth or decline. However, of the 135bn ROL traded on the Regular market, 25bn ROL accounted for the shares that changed hands in the last ten minutes of the four-hour long trading session.
Traian Basescu claims elections were frauded
Traian Basescu, the PNL-PD Alliance presidential candidate, yesterday called for the cancellation of the elections held on Sunday on the grounds that the electoral process had been "profoundly tampered with" by the transfer of hundreds of thousands of votes to his rival, Adrian Nastase, the PSD-PUR Union candidate.
PSD-PUR responded to the accusation through Miron Mitrea, the Union's campaign manager, who said that cancellation of the election was out of the question and that the elections on Sunday had been "the most correct elections" to have been held since 1989 and the reaction of the PNL-PD Alliance bore proof of "Traian Basescu's primitive behaviour."
The Central Electoral Bureau (CEB), the institution that centralises the results in an election, demanded the Alliance produce proof to support its allegations.
The PNL-PD Alliance's request for a cancellation of the elections is a matter for the High Court of Justice, which will have to deliver a ruling shortly before the election results are published in the Official Gazette.
PNL-PD Alliance leaders supported their request for cancellation by claiming the fraud was committed with the software system provided to the Central Electoral Bureau.
Traian Basescu claims there was a transfer of some 320,000 votes to the PSD-PUR Union and to Adrian Nastase upon centralisation of the ballots at the CEB.
Basescu explained his reasoning. He said that according to the partial results released by CEB on Monday morning, the gap between the PSD-PUR Union and the PNL-PD Alliance on the one hand, and between Adrian Nastase and Traian Basescu on the other, was very small, yet kept growing with every announcement by CEB.
He provided details of the changes to the null ballots between Monday and yesterday morning. He said the number of null ballots for President stood at 304,816 at 9 a.m. on Monday, with a further 369,751 null ballots for Senate and 381,418 null ballots for the Chamber of Deputies.
By 12 p.m. the number of null ballots for President had gone up to 392,447, to 489,182 for the Senate and to 507,159 for the Chamber of Deputies.
Between 12 p.m. and 5 p.m., the null ballots fell "illegally, inexplicably in terms of statistics", according to PNL-PD Alliance representatives. As a result, the number of null ballots fell to 232,597 for President, 377,333 for Senate and 405,954 for the Chamber of Deputies.
Between 5 p.m. on Monday and 9 a.m. on Tuesday, the number of null ballots changed to 299,184 null ballots for President, less than announced the day before at 12 p.m.; 490,279 for the Senate, slightly more than announced on November 29 at 12 p.m.; and 528,491 for the Chamber of Deputies, also slightly higher than announced on Monday at 12 p.m.
Using this reasoning, Traian Basescu claimed 160,000 null ballots were transferred to Adrian Nastase, equalling 2.5% of the vote, with 100,000 having been transferred to Parliament.
"At the same time, more than 100,000 ballots were moved from null ballots to PSD ballots, increasing the gap to 4.5%," Basescu said.
vlad.nicolaescu@zf.ro
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