Romania’s incumbent president Traian Basescu will remain in office after a recount of annulled votes in the recent election failed to overturn his victory.

His leftist challenger, Mircea Geoana, had contested the result at the Constitutional Court saying Basescu gained his narrow election victory by fraud.

After the recount Romania’s central election bureau said Basescu had won by around 70,000 votes.

The recount focused on almost 140,000 ballots that electoral official had declared invalid.

It turned out just over 2,000 of those should not have been disqualified and more than half of them were for Basescu.

He can now start work on putting together a coalition government to end a months-long political crisis in Romania and jump-start a stalled 20 billion euro international aid deal.

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