Romania's Constitutional Court has barred far-right candidate Călin Georgescu from the country's presidential elections, having already invalidated his November victory.
On 9 March in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, there were significant protests. People took to the streets to demonstrate against the electoral committee's announcement that Călin Georgescu, a far-right pro-Russian politician, would be barred from the presidential elections scheduled for May.
Protests of this kind have been going on for several weeks in Romania. Georgescu is the candidate who, against all expectations and partly thanks to a relentless campaign on the social network TikTok, won the presidential elections in November, which were subsequently annulled by the Constitutional Court on the grounds of Russian interference in the vote and rescheduled for May. In recent weeks Georgescu had been arrested on charges of conspiring against the country, before being released. In the days that followed he appealed against his exclusion from the next electoral round, but the Constitutional Court upheld its decision. Romania is increasingly mired in political and social chaos.
Călin Georgescu is 62 years old and has a long record of institutional experience. From the late twentieth century onwards he held prominent roles in the fields of economics, the environment and sustainable development, and also became the country's special rapporteur at the UN. From 2010 onwards, during various political crises in Romania, he was put forward on several occasions as a potential prime minister in a technocratic capacity. In 2020 he formally joined the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), a far-right party. He subsequently left it due to disagreements with its leadership, running as an independent in the Romanian presidential elections of November 2024.
Georgescu's electoral campaign focused primarily on the social network TikTok. There he posted videos depicting his daily life — attending church, taking part in interviews and engaging in sporting activities. Alongside these, Georgescu published further videos in which he leaned into the ideological shift he had undergone in recent years: one marked by attacks on NATO and its military bases in Romania, opposition to the European Union, admiration for Russian president Vladimir Putin, criticism of Ukraine, and revisionism regarding certain figures from Romania's history of fascist and antisemitic extremism, such as Corneliu Zelea Codreanu and Ion Antonescu.
Georgescu's TikTok profile saw his follower count surge into the hundreds of thousands, while some of his videos were watched by millions of people. Outside the social network, however, his support appeared minimal, and autumn polls placed him sixth among candidates in terms of voter preference, with ratings below 6 per cent. Completely unexpectedly, in the presidential elections of 24 November Georgescu instead secured 22.3 per cent of the vote, advancing to the run-off on 8 December. Romanian electoral law stipulates that the presidency goes to the candidate who obtains at least 50 per cent of the vote. If no candidate reaches that threshold, a second round is held between the top two finishers — in the case of the last elections, Georgescu and Elena Lasconi, leader of the centre-right party Save Romania Union (USR).
The run-off in the 2024 Romanian presidential elections never took place. On 6 December, two days before voters were due to return to the polls, the Constitutional Court annulled the presidential elections, citing "an aggressive hybrid action by Russia" in the vote that had led to Călin Georgescu's first-round victory.
The allegation was based on a series of intelligence documents which revealed a genuine Russian-backed online campaign, channelled primarily through TikTok and built on fake news, in support of Georgescu. In addition to this, the Court's judges denounced irregularities in the financing of his electoral campaign. Specifically, the Court spoke of "numerous irregularities and violations of electoral legislation that distorted the free and fair nature of the vote cast by citizens and undermined the equal opportunities of electoral competitors". The European Commission also weighed in on the matter, calling on TikTok to preserve data and material relating to the elections in Romania in order to carry out an investigation into the capacity of international actors to interfere online in electoral processes within the European Union. Russia had already recently been accused of meddling in elections in several countries, most notably Moldova and Georgia.
The invalidation of the presidential election results prompted widespread criticism both at home and abroad. Elena Lasconi, the centre-right candidate who came second in the first round and who has historically held positions hostile to Vladimir Putin's Russia, condemned the Constitutional Court's decision, which was instead welcomed by the centre-left Social Democratic Party (PSD). Several analysts quoted by the New York Times, including Ukrainian political scientist Anton Shekhovtsov and electoral systems expert Richard Nash, pointed out that the decision to annul the elections is problematic in its contours, as it is only partially supported by clear evidence. This in turn handed the Kremlin and its anti-Western narrative a ready-made talking point.
The Romanian presidential elections were postponed to 4 May, with a potential second round scheduled for 18 May. But the story did not end there, and in the weeks that followed the country's political and social crisis deepened further.
On 21 December the mandate of outgoing president Klaus Iohannis, leader of the National Liberal Party (PNL), expired. In Romania the president plays a leading role above all in foreign policy and security, and throughout his terms in office Iohannis had given the country a strongly pro-European direction. Against the backdrop of the chaos surrounding the annulment of elections won by a pro-Russian and anti-Western candidate, the fact that Iohannis continued to act as president — including tasking prime minister Marcel Ciolacu in early January with forming a new pro-European government — sparked protests among the population as well as within the Romanian political arena. After two failed votes of no confidence, a third motion drew the support of the pro-European centre-right party Save Romania Union (USR), and this persuaded Iohannis to resign. He was replaced on an interim basis by the president of the Senate, Ilie Bolojan.
While protests over the annulment of the elections continued to unfold across the country in the weeks that followed, on 26 February Călin Georgescu was detained by police in Bucharest on charges of incitement to overthrow the constitutional order, spreading false information and promoting the cult of personalities accused of genocide. His interrogation lasted five hours, after which he was released under an obligation not to leave Romania. In early March, six people — including retired army general Radu Theodoru — were arrested by Romanian police on suspicion of planning a coup in the country with Russia's complicity, while two Russian officials were expelled from the country.
Călin Georgescu has always said he wanted to run again in the May elections, with the aim of replicating his November vote victory, which was subsequently annulled. Georgescu had begun the bureaucratic procedures to appear on the ballot, but on 9 March the Romanian electoral committee intervened and blocked his candidacy. The reason lies in documents relating to the financing of his electoral campaign, which were deemed not to be in order. Georgescu described the decision as "another direct blow to the heart of democracy around the world", accusing Europe and Romania itself of tyranny. Following the news of his renewed exclusion from the electoral race, hundreds of Georgescu's supporters took to the streets in Bucharest outside the headquarters of the electoral committee. There were violent clashes with police, with stone-throwing and tear gas being deployed, leaving several people injured.
On 10 March Georgescu appealed against his exclusion from the May elections, but the Constitutional Court upheld his exclusion, making it final. This has once again heightened social tensions, and further street protests are likely in the coming weeks, while the far right is in search of a new candidate to put forward.