Romania's FM Resigns
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu on Tuesday announced his resignation, eight days after he took over the ministry to deal with streamlining the ballot casting in the diaspora for the presidential runoff on November 16.
He thus became the most short-lived minister in the history of Romania.
Melescanu told a press conference that he will tender his resignation as foreign minister at the government's meeting on Tuesday, as not all the Romanian citizens living abroad were able to exercise their voting right in Sunday's runoff.
"I apologize to those who could not vote," said Melescanu, stressing that there were a record number of voters in the diaspora and the current outdated legislation is to blame for all malfunctions.
According to him, the current law no longer corresponds to "the demographic reality and the free movement tendencies especially across Europe."
On Monday, Melescanu underlined in a statement that the "much more intense" streamlining of the voting process at the runoff, in comparison with the first round, allowed "almost three times more Romanians" overseas to vote, Xinhua reported.
Prime Minister Victor Ponta Monday had mentioned the fate of the foreign minister, saying that "Melescanu took over at the last minute and did everything that was possible in legal and human terms. Anyway, he did not come to stay in office as Foreign Minister, but practically tried to help on the last lap."
"Compared to the 161,000 ballots cast abroad in the first round, there have been 380,000 in the runoff, so I think some hard work has been done here, but a change in legislation is necessary for the December 2016 ballot casting in the diaspora to unfold normally," Ponta added.
Melescanu's predecessor Titus Corlatean had to resign after being blamed for poorly organized overseas polling stations in the first round of presidential elections on Nov. 2, when a large number of Romanians living overseas failed to cast their votes due to the shortage of polling stations.
