Romanian election chaos: Far-right win leads to possible first-round rerun
Top election official hints at possible re-vote after unexpected far-right victory in Romanian presidential race. Constitutional Court orders vote recount while examining claims of outside interference in the election process
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
