ELECTIONS IN RUMANIA

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24898, 11 June 1946, Page 5

ELECTIONS IN RUMANIA

PROTESTS BY U.S. AND BRITAIN OPPOSITION MEMBER’S • COMMENT WASHINGTON, June 7. “The Rumanian Cabinet did not discuss the British and American protest Notes (on free elections and censorship) delivered last week and was not consulted in drafting the Rumanian reply,” said the Opposition Party Minister without portfolio (Mr Mihail Romniceanu), according to Reuter’s Bucharest correspondent. Mr Romniceanu added that his only knowledge of the Notes and the reply was from the newspapers to-day, when the news was published after several days’ delay due to censorship. The Cabinet had met only six times since he had joined it under the Moscow agreement, and should be 'broadened. Mr Romniceanu represents the National Peasant Party. Replying to the American Note of condemnation, the Rumanian Government notified Washington that it was eager to hold elections, and published a draft of a law providing for a ballot. The Government also stated that the leaders of all the Opposition parties attended all Cabinet meetings and 16 Opposition newspapers were publishing with complete freedom and practising virtual licence in their attacks on the Government. Simultaneously with the publication of Rumania’s Note, the United States State Department issued a statement reiterating that Rumanian assurances of democratic practices and its intention to hold free elections were unsatisfactory and presented a distorted picture of the actual conditions. The statement added that the draft election proposal cited was drawn up only by parties participating in the National Democratic Front, which dominated the Government. No date was fixed for an official consideration of the electoral law, and no steps had been taken to register voters or to revise the lists. Two Opposition parties were allowed to publish only one daily newspaper each in Bucharest, and they constantly were hamstrung by censorship and newsprint difficulties. Opposition Party leaders were studiously excluded from participation in the Government.