Calin Georgescu fight against the cancellation of his candidacy in Romania

The ultra -nationalist and prorruso Calin Georgescu may not be presented, in principle, to the presidential elections that will be held in Romania on May 4, and for which he left as a favorite. Georgescu has been vetoed by the central electoral office. There are six criminal cases against him, included for alleged belonging to fascist organization. However, his fight does not cease, since he presented on Monday a resource that has little chances of prospering. The Constitutional Court will meet on Tuesday to examine the appeal.

For Romania’s allies in the European Union and NATO, Georgescu’s exclusion from the presidential career is very good news as a threat to democracy was considered. With Georgescu disappear or, at least they are reduced, the possibilities that this country in southeast of Europe, NATO operations center and very important for support to Ukraine, changed course and became pro-kremlin in the near future.

For the new US administration, the veto to Georgescu, on the contrary, will corroborate the democratic deficit and lack of freedom of expression that, according to Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference, have been installed in Europe. In his attack, Vance cited as an example the presidential elections held in November in Romania, elections that Georgescu won in the first round but that the Constitutional Court subsequently annulled for alleged interference of Russia and financial information of the false campaign. In Vance’s words, an election cancellation based on “weak suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental neighbors”

“You can believe that it is wrong that Russia buy ads on social networks to influence your choices, we certainly believe it. But if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it was not very strong to start,” said Vance.

Already with Georgescu as a favorite candidate in the first round of November, the Supreme National Defense Council of Romania (CSAT) declassified the reports of three intelligence services (not only one, as Vance said). The documents showed How Russia set up a generalized hybrid war against Romania Through viral campaigns in Tiktok and Telegram, favoring the strongly anti -west message of Georgescu.

Annulment of results

Since the Romanian law prohibits foreign interference in the elections, the Constitutional Court annulled the results and the second round was canceled just use days of its celebration. The process was rescheduled for May this year. The official messages of Brussels, Paris, Berlin and other western capitals, including Washington, then under the presidency of Joe Biden, were supported by the Court’s decision. Meanwhile, six criminal cases have been opened against him, among other reasons, for belonging to a fascist organization and for providing false information on the financing of the electoral campaign.

Georgescu, the candidate who appeared out of nowhere in November, got almost 23 % of the votes with his mixture of romantic and esoteric nationalist messages. State mechanisms went into action to investigate the reasons of such inexplicable success and The first decision was to postpone the second round of the presidentialwhich, according to the polls, was also going to win Georgescu. Thus, the Constitutional Court was the first to declare the November elections void, later the Attorney General’s Office initiated an investigation against him and now the electoral authority has suspended his candidacy. Even if each of these decisions is solidly justified, the time elapsed has fed the suspicions that Vance exposed on all political sides. The popularity of Georgescu has also increased even more under the pressure of the investigation.

The candidate for president who never touched the fiber of the Romanians disappointed with the two great established parties. Many see the state and their organs such as the Booty of the PSD postcommunist and the national-liberal NLP. Therefore and although Georgescu disappears from the scene, the problems that favored his sudden ascent are far from disappearing.