European Central: Romania Reruns Its Presidential Election

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On November 24, 2024, Romania, a key NATO member state in Eastern Europe, held a presidential election that delivered a surprising result. Călin Georgescu, a right-wing populist and pro-Russia politician running as an independent candidate, won a plurality of the vote (23%). He outran the center-right, pro-European Save Romania Union candidate (19.18%) and the center-left Social Democratic Party candidate (19.15%). Georgescu and Elena Lasconi of the Save Romania Union, as the top two vote-earners, were set to proceed to a runoff election scheduled for December 8.

The presidential election was shaped by concerns over inflation and Romania’s skyrocketing cost of living – the country has the highest proportion of people at risk of poverty in the European Union, alongside the bloc’s highest inflation rate and a massive budget deficit.

Georgescu won the race in part by running a viral social media campaign that emphasized reducing Romania’s reliance on energy and food imports and ending the country’s support for Ukraine, referring to Ukraine as an ‘invented state.’ Georgescu, who worked in sustainable development for the United Nations before entering politics, criticized NATO’s missile defense shield over Romania, calling it a ‘shame of diplomacy,’ and questioned whether the alliance would protect its members from a potential Russian offensive. He also suggested that Romania was not equipped to manage its own diplomacy and strategy, arguing that the country’s best hope lay in ‘Russian wisdom.’ He has, however, avoided directly stating support for Russia in its ongoing war with Ukraine.

During the campaign, Georgescu said on Facebook that he was running to represent ‘those who feel they do not matter, and actually matter the most.’ After the results were announced, he declared that the election was ‘an extraordinary awakening’ of the Romanian people.

Then, on December 7, just one day before the second round of the presidential election, Romania’s Constitutional Court invalidated the results of the first round of voting. In a statement to the press, the court explained that the annulment was supported by Article 146(f) of Romania’s Constitution, which stresses the importance of safeguarding the accuracy and legality of the electoral process. The court declared that the ruling was final and binding, compelling the Romanian government to ‘restart the electoral calendar.’

This came just days after concerns over foreign interference surfaced. Documents were declassified and released by Romania’s top security agency which revealed evidence of ‘aggressive hybrid Russian attacks.’ One of the declassified documents outlined over 85,000 attempted cyber-attacks targeting election websites and IT infrastructure. The report concluded that ‘the attacker has considerable resources specific to an attacking state [i.e., Russia].’ The documents also highlighted that Georgescu’s campaign, which was mainly run on social media platforms such as TikTok, appeared to have been unlawfully amplified through externally sourced algorithms, coordinated bot accounts, and paid promotions.

The Constitutional Court’s decision to annul the presidential election came after several days of protests in Bucharest, Romania’s capital, where hundreds of demonstrators gathered to oppose Georgescu and the far-right. Protesters carried signs and banners with messages such as ‘No fascism’ and ‘Romania, a landmark in the EU and NATO.’

On December 31, a Romanian appeals court rejected Georgescu’s lawsuit challenging the Constitutional Court’s decision to invalidate and rerun the presidential election. Georgescu decried the appeals court’s ruling, declaring that ‘Justice has been brought to its knees again,’ and ‘Through what happened today, the people [have been] condemned to accept corruption and injustice as a state of affairs.’ Georgescu also called Romania’s outgoing president, Klaus Iohannis, ‘illegitimate’ and threatened him and his ‘equally illegitimate government’ with ‘years and years of prison.’

Just 35 years after the ousting of the brutal Communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, Romanians now find themselves grappling with this latest chapter in their complex political history. These legal decisions have deepened divisions within the fledgling democracy, with many families and friends taking ‘opposing sides on supporting Georgescu and seeing his victory being taken away.’

‘Sometimes you have to sacrifice democracy to save democracy,’ claimed Igor Bergler, a Romanian novelist and satirist. The Constitutional Court’s ruling was necessary to prevent a dictator from seizing power, he said. ‘But it is a clearly antidemocratic step that sets a very dangerous precedent.’ Similarly, Diana Mardarovici, a politician with Romania’s centrist National Liberal Party, said that while she was ‘relieved’ that an ultranationalist had not become president, she was nevertheless concerned about ‘the precedent this sets.’  The voters, she argued, chose Georgescu in the first round because they lost trust in the mainstream parties. Invalidating the result, she said, will likely result in an even greater loss of trust.

Some of Romania’s centrist, pro-EU leaders have sharply criticized the annulment. Elena Lasconi of the Save Romania Union called it ‘illegal’ and said it ‘crushes the very essence of democracy – the vote.’ A staunch critic of Russia, she warned that Romania could become ‘the laughingstock of the Kremlin dictator.’

While many in the West celebrated the Constitutional Court’s decision to annul the presidential election, it may have inadvertently handed Russia a major propaganda victory. Russia has long criticized the West’s ‘stated commitment to democracy as a sham that only applied so long as the “wrong” side did not win.’ Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said after the ruling: ‘I am sure that all these games are perfectly understandable to any more or less objective observer.’ These remarks were mockingly posted on the website of Russia’s embassy in Bucharest.

The EU, meanwhile, has stayed silent on the Constitutional Court’s decision, insisting that the responsibility for managing elections lies with each individual member state. EU countries, however, have lauded Romania’s response to alleged Russian interference. Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said that ‘democracy prevailed’ because ‘a solution in line with the Romanian constitution was found.’ Officials in Germany and the Baltic States have expressed similar views.

The Constitutional Court did not question the validity of the parliamentary elections held on December 1, in which Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu’s Social Democratic Party finished first. Ciolacu, who is now in his second term, promised to hold the new presidential election ‘in a normal climate, not in a hybrid reality built from [the] outside by Romania’s enemies.’ Romania will hold its presidential rerun on March 23, 2025, with the second round on April 6.