Three Exit-Polls Show Geoana Victor In Romanian Presidential Election, One Shows Basescu Winning

Exit polls by INSOMAR, CCSB and CURS at poll closing time continue to show social democrat Mircea Geoana as winner of Sunday's presidential election, while CSOP, which showed a 50%-50% tie two hours before polls closed, now shows Basescu leading with 50.4%.

In the second round of Romania's presidential election, Geoana got 51.2% of the vote and incumbent Traian Basescu got 48.8%, according to INSOMAR, after centralizing data collected by GMT1900, when polls closed.

Geoana is also a winner with 51% against Basescu's 49%, according to CCSB.

Geoana got 50.70% of the vote and Basescu 49.30%, according to CURS.

CSOP shows Basescu leading the vote with 50.4% against Geoana's 49.6%.

Exit polls compiled using data collected until GMT1900 differ from those released earlier by 0.2 to 0.4 percentage points in Basescu's favor.

The country's Central Electoral Bureau is expected to release the first official results Monday at GMT0600.

Basescu's democrat liberals have said their own parallel ballot count in nearly 40% of polling stations across the country show Basescu in the lead with 50.7% of the vote.

Democratic Liberal Party leader Emil Boc said that 2004 presidential election exit-polls showed Basescu losing, but he emerged a winner after the final count. Boc added ballots cast by Romanian abroad will be decisive for the outcome of Sunday's election.

While polls in the country closed at GMT1900, 204 polling stations out of 294 set up abroad are still open. The last polling stations close Monday morning at GMT0500 on the west coast of the United States.

mediafax.ro