Far-right frontrunner Călin Georgescu blocked from Romanian presidential race

Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau on Sunday blocked Russia-aligned, far-right candidate Călin Georgescu from competing in a May rerun of the country’s presidential election.

The bureau said Georgescu had violated Romania’s election rules while coming out of nowhere to win the first round of the presidential vote last November, partly on the back of a wildly successfully TikTok campaign. The Constitutional Court later annulled his victory, flagging undeclared campaign financing and fraudulent use of digital technologies, with an alleged Russian operation seen as having influenced the result.

The Digi24 news service said the electoral bureau had voted against allowing Georgescu, again leading the polls ahead of the rerun, to proceed by a margin of 10 to 4. Georgescu can appeal within 24 hours, with the Constitutional Court obliged to rule by Wednesday.  

Scores of Georgescu supporters clashed with riot police in downtown Bucharest Sunday night. They threw rocks, firecrackers and bottles, injuring some law enforcement officers responding to the unrest, Digi24 reported. Riot police used tear gas in response.

Elena Lasconi, president of the center-right Union Save Romania party, who had been due to face Georgescu in the runoff last year before the election was canceled, called on the bureau to explain its decision quickly: “Decisions must be explained, otherwise people will become furious, suspicious and prone to conspiracies,” she said in a statement.

‘This is crazy’

The Trump administration, itself aligning with the Kremlin on core foreign policy objectives, has supported the idea of allowing Georgescu to compete.

Trump’s senior adviser Elon Musk reacted immediately to Sunday’s news from Romania with a post on X saying: “This is crazy.”

Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister and leader of the right-wing populist party Lega, called the rejection of Georgescu’s candidacy a “Soviet-style Euro-coup,” in a post on X. “Lega is next to so many Romanian citizens who, at home or in Italy, are robbed of their right to vote by a very grave theft of democracy,” he wrote.

Georgescu also tried to play up what he claimed were the international implications of the election bureau’s decision: “If democracy in Romania falls, the entire democratic world will fall!” he wrote on X. “This is just the beginning. It’s that simple! Europe is now a dictatorship, Romania is under tyranny!”

This article is being updated.