Romanian politics got shaken up when Calin Georgescu unexpectedly won the first-round presidential vote last week. The 62-year old independent far-right candidateʼs success raised eye-brows and made officials look deeper into the election process
The Supreme Defence Council found proof that non-friendly groups tried to mess with the election: social-media platform gave extra attention to one candidate and didnt mark election-related content properly. The Constitutional Court stepped in and ordered a re-count of all 9.46 million votes (while they look at a request to cancel the whole first round)
The situation is extra-complex because theres only a tiny gap — less than 3‚000 votes — between runner-up Elena Lasconi and third-place finisher Marcel Ciolacu. Election boss Toni Grebla said they might need to re-do the first round on Dec 15th; pushing the run-off to Dec 29th
Any accusations of Russian interference in Romaniaʼs presidential election are groundless
The mess affects Romanias upcoming parliament vote in 2 days. Political expert Cristian Pirvulescu thinks voters will be confused since they wont know whoʼll be in the presidential run-off when they pick parliament members. Another worry is that independent vote-checkers werent allowed to watch the re-count which makes some people doubt its fair-and-square
Georgescu has some non-standard views that worry many:
- Thinks 1930s fascist leaders were heroes
- Not happy with Romania being in NATO
- Wants to be friends with Russia instead of helping Ukraine
The whole situation might make more people vote for far-right groups and hurt their trust in how Romania runs things