Summary
Romania’s electoral commission barred far-right candidate Calin Georgescu from the presidential election without explanation.
Georgescu, who led polls with 40%, called the move “a direct blow to democracy” and plans to appeal. His supporters protested in Bucharest.
The constitutional court annulled his prior election win over alleged Russian interference, which he denies. He faces legal issues, including accusations of financing violations and extremist ties.
A vocal Trump supporter, Georgescu received backing from Trump officials, including Elon Musk and JD Vance, who condemned Romania’s actions.
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, this pretty much confirms that the leading parties have been colluding to manipulate elections. The ideal situation would have been him getting his ass whoopped by being voted out. On the other, there was a non-zero chance that he might actually have won.
Either way, the shitshow is not even close to being over. These parties make up 32% of our current parliament, and they’re likely to grow after this stunt, so we’ll have to deal with this crap again during the next election cycle, or sooner.
As a Romanian I’m on the same page as you. While I completely despise this guy for his ties to the fascist movement in Romania, his corrupted political allies, and his closeness to dictators like Trump and Putin, barring him from running for office is a big mistake if no concrete evidence against him is actually laid out. A democracy should be transparent. This entire ordeal wasn’t.
If you allow foreign dictatorships to influence your democracy then are you really a democracy at all? Better to nip people like this in the bud.
Also the legal grounds for their removal was their ties to the Iron Guard, which is illegal.
Also people of that kind love nothing more than being a martyr, which means if the whole decision is not absolutely bulletproof, this has the potential to backfire so much. Not Romanian, but I was listening some opinion piece about this just few days ago.