Village in Romania makes into New York Times for strange coincidence at local elections

Draguseni, a village of 2,500 in Suceava county, northern Romania, has become famous worldwide and even reached the pages of New York Times due to a strange coincidence in the local elections. Three of the five people who ran for mayor in Draguseni had the same name – Vasile Cepoi. The three men represented three of the biggest parties in Romania: the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the National Liberal Party (PNL), and the Popular Movement Party (PMP) ran by former President Traian Basescu. One of the three Vasile Cepois, the one representing PSD, has been mayor since 2004 and at each local election round he had at least one opponent with the same name. He claimed that the other two candidates with the same name were trying to confuse the voters and deny him a fourth term. In the end, Vasile Cepoi the mayor won another mandate with 82% of the votes, which means that the scheme didn’t work. The New York Times article points out that fraud has shadowed all elections organized in Romania in the past 25 years: “Since the first free elections were held two decades ago in Romania, fraud has been common, according to reports by international election observers. Candidates and their parties have offered small gifts of food, drink or cash to lure voters, or encouraged electoral tourism — paying voters to visit multiple polling stations on Election Day, stuffing ballot boxes for their preferred candidates.” Expat candidate has doubts about overnight turnaround in Bucharest’s District 1 mayor elections Romania’s local elections: Arrested city mayor reelected with 70% majority editor@romania-insider.com