BUCHAREST, March 10. /TASS/. Elena Lasconi, the centrist candidate in a Romanian presidential election run-off, criticized the central election authority’s decision to bar far-right populist Calin Georgescu from running again in May.
"This is not in support of Calin Georgescu, I support democracy and law. But I object if certain procedures and laws in general are not observed <...>. Last year, too, we questioned the Constitutional Court’s mandate after it failed to produce evidence [of electoral violations by Georgescu]," she told Digi24 in an interview.
Former Romanian President Traian Basescu, too, recommended that the Central Election Bureau provide more convincing evidence of such violations. "The bureau should present more compelling reasons <...>. For example, if there were evidence of him using undeclared funds," the former leader stressed.
On November 24, 2024, Romania held the first round of the presidential election, in which Georgescu received a plurality. On December 6, Romania’s Constitutional Court annulled the vote and ordered a new election. This decision followed the declassification of documents by Romanian intelligence services, which revealed, among other things, that Georgescu had illegally financed his campaign. The government upheld the Constitutional Court’s decision and set the dates for a presidential rerun for May 4 and May 18 of this year.
On March 7, Georgescu again registered with the Central Election Bureau as a candidate for the May 4 presidential election run-off. Clashes erupted anew between his supporters and gendarmes outside the building of Romania’s central election body after it refused to register his candidacy for the upcoming presidential rerun. Georgescu has until March 18 to appeal to the Constitutional Court.