The far-right frontrunner in Romania’s presidential vote has been barred from running in May’s election, in an explosive decision that sparked violence on the streets of Bucharest and came despite pressure from Washington to “listen” to voters’ demands.
After a 10-4 vote, the country’s electoral bureau (BEC) said Sunday it was invalidating Calin Georgescu’s candidacy due to his “failure to comply with the electoral regulations.”
The decision came just over a week after Romanian prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into Georgescu, accusing him of crimes such as attempting to subvert the constitutional order and establishing a fascist organization. When Georgescu left the courthouse where he was questioned last month, he made what many interpreted to be a Nazi salute to his supporters outside.
The BEC ruling will outrage Georgescu’s supporters in Romania and come as a boon to Moscow and members of the Trump administration, who have singled out Romania as a chief agent of democratic backsliding in Europe.
Despite being virtually unknown before Romania’s annulled presidential election last year, Georgescu – a 62-year-old former soil scientist who opposes aid to Ukraine and has expressed sympathy for Romania’s fascist leaders from the 20th century – has won widespread support in the Eastern European country and become a cause célèbre on the American right.
Georgescu won the first round of the election in November, but the country’s constitutional court voided the result after declassified intelligence reports uncovered possible Russian interference in Georgescu’s TikTok-fueled campaign. A re-run is scheduled for May, and polls show that Georgescu was on track to win a plurality of votes.
The decision to annul November’s election had little precedent and handed a propaganda victory to Moscow, which has long dismissed Western democracy as a sham in which elites fix the results to suppress unorthodox views and guarantee an outcome favorable to the liberal establishment.
This rhetoric has also begun to be echoed in Washington. In February, US Vice President JD Vance told a stunned audience at the Munich Security Conference that Romania’s decision to cancel the election “based on the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency” was evidence of Europe’s “threat from within.”
“If your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with,” Vance said.
Georgescu said the BEC’s decision to bar him showed that “Europe is now a dictatorship” and that “Romania is under tyranny.” Elon Musk, who has also expressed support for far-right parties in Germany, said: “This is crazy.”
Georgescu’s supporters descended on the BEC headquarters on Sunday evening, with some throwing Molotov cocktails. At least 13 members of Romania’s Gendarmerie security force were injured in subsequent clashes, Antena 3 reported.
George Simion, chair of the right-wing Alliance for Romania (AUR) party, said in a video on social media that the BEC members who voted against Georgescu’s candidacy should be “skinned in the public square,” according to Antena 3. Other AUR members have since tried to walk back his statement.
If Georgescu chooses to challenge the BEC’s decision before a Monday evening deadline, Romania’s constitutional court would then consider his appeal.