The far-right frontrunner in Romania\u2019s presidential vote has been barred from running in May\u2019s election, in an explosive decision that sparked violence on the streets of Bucharest and came despite pressure from Washington to \u201clisten\u201d to voters\u2019 demands. <\/p>\n
After a 10-4 vote, the country\u2019s electoral bureau (BEC) said Sunday it was invalidating Calin Georgescu\u2019s candidacy due to his \u201cfailure to comply with the electoral regulations.\u201d <\/p>\n
The decision came just over a week after Romanian prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into Georgescu, accusing him of crimes such as attempting to subvert the constitutional order and establishing a fascist organization. When Georgescu left the courthouse where he was questioned last month, he made what many interpreted to be a Nazi salute to his supporters outside. <\/p>\n
The BEC ruling will outrage Georgescu\u2019s supporters in Romania and come as a boon to Moscow and members of the Trump administration, who have singled out Romania as a chief agent of democratic backsliding in Europe. <\/p>\n
Despite being virtually unknown before Romania\u2019s annulled presidential election last year, Georgescu \u2013 a 62-year-old former soil scientist who opposes aid to Ukraine and has expressed sympathy for Romania\u2019s fascist leaders from the 20th century \u2013 has won widespread support in the Eastern European country and become a cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre on the American right. <\/p>\n
Georgescu won the first round of the election in November, but the country\u2019s constitutional court voided the result after declassified intelligence reports uncovered possible Russian interference in Georgescu\u2019s TikTok-fueled campaign. A re-run is scheduled for May, and polls show that Georgescu was on track to win a plurality of votes. <\/p>\n
The decision to annul November\u2019s election had little precedent and handed a propaganda victory to Moscow, which has long dismissed Western democracy as a sham in which elites fix the results to suppress unorthodox views and guarantee an outcome favorable to the liberal establishment. <\/p>\n
This rhetoric has also begun to be echoed in Washington. In February, US Vice President JD Vance told a stunned audience at the Munich Security Conference that Romania\u2019s decision to cancel the election \u201cbased on the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency\u201d was evidence of Europe\u2019s \u201cthreat from within.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIf your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn\u2019t very strong to begin with,\u201d Vance said. <\/p>\n
Georgescu said the BEC\u2019s decision to bar him showed that \u201cEurope is now a dictatorship\u201d and that \u201cRomania is under tyranny.\u201d Elon Musk, who has also expressed support for far-right parties in Germany, said: \u201cThis is crazy.\u201d <\/p>\n
Georgescu\u2019s supporters descended on the BEC headquarters on Sunday evening, with some throwing Molotov cocktails. At least 13 members of Romania\u2019s Gendarmerie security force were injured in subsequent clashes, Antena 3 reported. <\/p>\n
George Simion, chair of the right-wing Alliance for Romania (AUR) party, said in a video on social media that the BEC members who voted against Georgescu\u2019s candidacy should be \u201cskinned in the public square,\u201d according to Antena 3. Other AUR members have since tried to walk back his statement. <\/p>\n
If Georgescu chooses to challenge the BEC\u2019s decision before a Monday evening deadline, Romania\u2019s constitutional court would then consider his appeal. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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