Thousands of Romanians gathered on Friday outside the parliament building in Bucharest, which also houses the country’s Constitutional Court, to protest the court’s annulment of the November presidential election.
Outsider populist Calin Georgescu was the runaway leader in the election, but the court nullified the entire vote over allegations of Russian interference.
Georgescu, invariably described as a “far-right populist” by international media, shocked the Romanian political establishment by roaring into first place in pre-election polling. His success was all the more remarkable because his campaign spent very little money on advertising; in fact, he claimed he spent nothing at all.
Georgescu built an enormous following on social media, running as an admirer of American President-elect Donald Trump, a skeptic of funding for Ukraine, an economic nationalist, a Christian conservative, and a very spirited critic of left-wing billionaire George Soros. Polls showed him drawing heavy support from religious conservatives and people frustrated with the bottomless corruption of Romanian government.
One of the major criticisms raised against Georgescu was that he spoke admiringly of Russian President Vladimir Putin as “a man who loves his country,” although he insisted he did not agree with Putin’s agenda.
Georgescu was dismissed as a fringe candidate by Romanian media until he suddenly burst into the lead in polls, then won the first round of the presidential election with 23 percent of the vote. Political analysts confidently predicted he would be crushed in the second round, as lower-ranked candidates dropped out and the anti-Georgescu vote consolidated around a single champion — but suddenly, he was leading in the second round by a seemingly unsurmountable margin.
A week before the second-round vote was to be held, declassified Romanian intelligence documents were released that accused Georgescu of benefiting from 25,000 phony TikTok accounts created by a Russian disinformation campaign. The documents also claimed Russia disrupted the Romanian election system with a massive cyberattack.
Romania’s top prosecutor announced these allegations would be investigated as “electoral crimes” and then, two days before the vote, the Constitutional Court nullified the entire election. Enraged Georgescu supporters flooded the streets, complaining about a stolen election and rigged system. They returned to their protests on Friday, waving Romanian flags and chanting: “We voted, you stole from us … Give us back the second round.”
Demonstrators also argued the administration of President Klaus Iohannis was illegitimate because it should have ended on December 22 following the election. Some of the marchers called for Iohannis to be arrested and denounced members of his government as “traitors.”
Georgescu himself did not attend the protest, although he sent a video message to his supporters and asked the Constitutional Court to “urgently review the decision that has thrown Romania into chaos.”
Georgescu did not join the marchers because he was on his way to “the heart of Europe, to the highest courts,” as he put it, to file legal challenges against “great European institutions” that supported nullifying the election. He was most likely talking about the European Court of Human Rights, which is located in Strasbourg, France.
The protest coincided with Georgescu’s lawyers filing a formal request for the top court to reverse its annulment decision. A similar request was filed by fellow populist candidate George Simion, who notched a disappointing fourth-place finish in the election after the meteoric rise of Georgescu.
“We have been living in a dictatorship since December 6. We are here to defend democracy,” Simion told reporters when he joined the protests in Bucharest.
“I am with the Romanians, not with a person. We do not support Mr. Georgescu. I wonder why Mrs. Lasconi is not here,” he said, referring to former journalist and mayor Elena Lasconi, who finished second in the nullified election.
Lasconi has criticized the election nullification, saying the court “trampled on democracy” with an “illegal and immoral” ruling. She said on Wednesday she will run again, despite heavy pressure from the current government coalition for her to drop out and clear a path for whoever their consensus candidate might be. The coalition is currently having trouble coming up with someone to run.
Several journalists said they were harassed by the protesters and pelted with trash, prompting a response from the police, who said “acts of aggression and intimidation” would be investigated and punished.
A new election in Romania has been scheduled for May 4, with a runoff vote on May 18 if necessary. Current polls suggest a majority of Romanians disagree with the annulment of the November election, and there is every chance Georgescu could win the new vote. Georgescu has urged Romanians to sign a petition demanding not a new election from scratch, but the aborted second-round runoff that would have seen him facing Lasconi, the second-place finisher in November.