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Heavens did not fall. Romania did not, on December 8, elect an openly pro-Russia president.
With the diaspora already voting in the second round of the country’s presidential election, Romania’s Constitutional Court on December 6 took the unprecedented step of annulling the result of the election’s first round, citing illegal use of digital technologies including artificial intelligence, as well as undeclared sources of campaign funding.
The second round was immediately cancelled, and the entire presidential election process will now be rerun, most likely in March next year. Until then, incumbent Klaus Iohannis will almost certainly remain in office.
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At the centre of events is Călin Georgescu (pictured above), running as an independent with the backing of three extremist parties, who won the first round with 22 per cent of the vote. Georgescu has been accused of holding pro-Russian, fascist views. He was due to face the broadly progressive, pro-European Elena Lasconi, leader of the Save Romania Union (USR), in the run-off.
Lasconi took 19 per cent in the first round, just a few thousand votes ahead of the country’s prime minister, Marcel Ciolacu, the pre-election favourite to become president.
In a statement, Georgescu, who symbolically attempted to vote at his local polling station on election day, said he would challenge the decision at the country’s supreme court, the High Court of Cassation and Justice. He said it was “unreal” that nine constitutional judges could overturn the votes of millions of Romanians. “It’s basically a coup,” he added.
Lasconi, whom the latest opinion poll had suggested had a narrow lead, also objected to the annulment of the election process, condemning the court’s ruling as “illegal” and “immoral”, saying “today is the moment when the Romanian state has trampled on democracy”.
“Whether we like it or not, from a legal and legitimate point of view, nine million Romanian citizens, both in the country and in the diaspora, have expressed their preference for a certain candidate. We cannot ignore their will,” she said.
Russian interference
However, the evidence suggesting that the playing field had been skewed in Georgescu’s favour appears overwhelming.
On Wednesday, Iohannis declassified intelligence documents from the Supreme Council for National Defence (CSAT) suggesting that almost 800 TikTok accounts created by a ‘foreign state’ in 2016 were suddenly activated last month to full capacity, all backing Georgescu.
Another 25,000 TikTok accounts, used to amplify Georgescu’s campaign, which was conducted almost exclusively on the social media platform, had become active only two weeks before the first round.
Romanian foreign intelligence said Russia was the ‘enemy state’ involved and had engaged in hybrid attacks including tens of thousands of cyber attacks and other sabotage of ‘electoral infrastructure’.
Now for a government
Precisely what happens next is unclear. Iohannis, who cannot run for a third term, said late on December 6 that he would remain in office until a new president is elected. First, Romania’s new parliament (a parliamentary election was held on December 1) needs to be sworn in, and a government formed.
A pro-EU coalition comprising Lasconi’s USR, Ciolacu’s Social Democrats (PSD), the Liberals (PNL) and the Union of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) had in principle agreed to form a national unity government to counter a potential Georgescu presidency, but the USR suggested on Friday that it would not now participate in any government that includes PSD, which it believes is behind the court’s decision to scrap the election.
However, although the court is dominated by PSD-linked judges, at least three of its nine members have no links to the party, and its decision to scrap the election was unanimous.
PSD, PNL and UDMR—together with several MPs who represent Romania’s various ethnic minorities, may have the numbers to govern without USR, at least in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of parliament. In the upper chamber, the Senate, it is less clear if they can cobble together a majority. It is also not certain that PNL will want to continue governing with PSD.
The three extremist parties which backed Georgescu, Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), SOS Romania, and the Young People’s party (POT), hold around 30 per cent of seats.
A new election
Whether Georgescu will or will not be allowed to run in the new election—the date of which will be set by the new parliament—is in doubt. There have been suggestions that he may even be arrested and charged with treason.
What’s almost certain is that PM Ciolacu will stand again, this time hoping to avoid the humiliation of being relegated to third place—the first time since Romania reestablished democracy in 1990 that a PSD candidate has failed to make the run-off.
Lasconi is likely to again be the USR candidate, but former PM Nicolae Ciucă, whose disastrous candidacy on behalf of the PNL ended in a humiliating fifth place and just 8.7 per cent of the vote could be replaced by Ilie Bolojan, mayor of the western Romanian city of Oradea and now de facto leader of the party.
George Simion, leader of AUR, is another certain candidate and, should Georgescu not be allowed to run, will be the main ‘sovereigntist’ candidate. SOS Romania’s founder, Diana Șoșoacă, was barred from running by the Constitutional Court for her pro-Russian stance that it said threatened Romania’s national security. It is, like much about the new election, unclear if she will remain barred from standing.
Mircea Geoană, former NATO deputy secretary general, is unlikely to stand again having come in a disappointing sixth place.
Joker in the pack could be the popular mayor of Bucharest Nicușor Dan, who has already been touted as a unity, pro-EU candidate.
Dan, founder of the USR before leaving the party over policy disputes, could be backed by both the USR and PNL (as he was when winning the Bucharest mayoralty in 2020), but it is highly doubtful that PSD would support him.
Photo: Călin Georgescu official Facebook page.
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