Romanian far-right populist Calin Georgescu has appealed a decision to bar him from participating in a rerun of the country’s presidential election.
Constitutional Court judges will meet on Tuesday to discuss Georgescu’s appeal, with a final ruling expected to be issued by Wednesday evening.
The Central Electoral Bureau, the BEC rejected his candidacy on Sunday in a 10-4 vote, saying it did not “meet the conditions of legality”, as Georgescu “violated the very obligation to defend democracy”.
Last year, the court canceled the election after Georgescu came out of nowhere to win the first round after intelligence revealed Russia had been involved in 800 TikTok accounts backing him.Moscow denies interference.
In his appeal filed Monday, Georgescu,62, said that the “BEC exceeded its legal powers”. He argued that the Constitutional Court’s ruling on the November election should not impact his candidacy for the May election.
Following the ban, Georgescu also called the ban a “direct blow to the heart of democracy worldwide”.
The electoral bureau’s decision sparked a violent protest in Bucharest on Sunday evening. Clashes erupted between riot police and Georgescu supporters who had gathered outside the offices of the BEC.
One news car was overturned and and the windows of neighboring bars were smashed. Some 13 riot police were injured and four remain hospitalized.
Georgescu thanked his supporters thanking supporters and added: “we should not give birth to violence or other forms of this kind.”
George Simion, a Georgescu ally and the leader of the far-right opposition Alliance for Uniting Romanians, parliament’s second-largest party, said on Monday that Romania was “the midst of a coup d’état”.
In a video on Sunday night, George Simion called for “those who committed the coup to be skinned in public for what they did.”
