Romanian authorities have cancelled popular presidential hopeful Calin Georgescu’s candidacy.
The highly criticised lawfare has escalated the country’s descent into chaos.
In a bizarre justification for cancelling Georgescu’s candidacy, Romania’s equivalent of the electoral commission, the Central Electoral Bureau (BEC), claimed he “violated the obligation to defend democracy.”
In effect, the BEC used the former Soviet satellite state’s Constitutional Court to argue that they needed to manage democracy in order to have democracy.
“We cannot let just anyone win the presidency,” so reads the implications of the BEC’s 10-4 vote.
The argument simmers down to the BEC implying that stage-managing democracy was necessary because voters couldn’t be trusted to make the “right” decisions.
They – the BEC – didn’t want to set a bad precedent by allowing a “bad” candidate to win.
By “bad” the BEC, without regard for the irony, means anyone those cancelling democracy sees as a threat to democracy.
Read into this what you will.
Georgescu is agnostic about the point of NATO, wants Putin’s version of a forever war in Ukraine to end peacefully, and doesn’t have an anachronistic hatred of Russians.
In other words, Georgescu is the independent candidate he claims to be, despite the Romanian media repeatedly framing him as pro-Russian.
Nevertheless, the BEC said, “Georgescu’s candidacy for president did not meet the conditions of legality.”
Overreaching, the BEC refused to go against the Constitutional Court.
Instead, the BEC supported the court’s rulings based on allegations, which sought to explain Georgescu’s shock 2024 first-round win, by claiming Russia meddled in the election.
To recap: Georgescu is under investigation over unproven claims he set up, “fascist, racist or xenophobic characteristics as well as forming an antisemitic organisation” (see here).
Other than seemingly backing the unproven allegations, the BEC said Georgescu did “not respect the rules of the electoral procedure.”
The BEC thus justified rejecting Călin Georgescu’s candidacy over a technicality.
“He lacked a signature on an annex to the asset declaration,” Romania’s News.ro explained.
Georgescu argued the BEC “violated the very obligation (provided in the Decision of the Constitutional Court no. 2 of October 5, 2024) to defend democracy.”
The “candidate’s conduct of non-compliance with the regulations of the electoral procedure, essential for democracy and the rule of law,” means his candidacy was “inadmissible.”
Also, for “as long as the Constitutional Court has already ruled regarding the aforementioned aspects,” Georgescu is not fit for office.
They rejected Georgescu’s defence as irrelevant, then “denied his registration for candidacy in the elections for the 2025 Presidential elections.”
The BEC also rejected two other candidates, minus the muddied reasoning.
Georgescu has 24 hours to appeal to the Constitutional Court.
Making his disgust known, Georgescu responded to the CC and BEC cancellation of his candidacy, saying it was,
“A direct blow to the heart of democracy worldwide!”
A direct blow to the heart of democracy worldwide! I have one message left! If democracy in Romania falls, the entire democratic world will fall! This is just the beginning. It’s that simple!
— Călin Georgescu OFFICIAL ACCOUNT (@CG_Romania) March 9, 2025
Europe is now a dictatorship, Romania is under tyranny!
Protesting the BEC’s apparent abandonment of Romanian voters in favour of election-interfering NGO lawfare, X reporter Mario Nawfal, wrote, “This isn’t just about Romania—it’s the same elite-driven censorship machine that has been deployed across Europe and even against Trump and Elon.”
Elon Musk threw his support behind Georgescu reposting commentary and commenting briefly on X reporter speculation.
Calling out the cancellation in February, the United States Vice President called the cancellation unacceptable:
The relevance for Australians is self-evident.
As I explained last week, destroying democracy to save democracy is the new black.
Look at the recent media-induced mass hysteria weaponizing Cyclone Alfred, which was aggressively used to push catastrophism about the climate.
The giddy excitement at a pending disaster’s potential to harvest votes for the Labor, Teals, and the Greens was hard to hide.
The people behind this mass hysteria are the same snake-in-the-grass bureaucrats who would happily suspend elections indefinitely until the opposition “got serious about the climate crisis.”
If you think I’m exaggerating, you haven’t been paying attention.
