Romanian hard-right politician Călin Georgescu on Tuesday said his election campaign manager had been the target of searches by prosecutors and police.
Mr. Georgescu, who won the first round of the cancelled November national election, wrote on Facebook: “The militia officer Predoiu and some prosecutors sent masked officers to the home of my campaign manager, Radu Pally, this morning.”
“I urgently demand an end to this abuse — you cannot intimidate us — we cannot be brought to our knees!”
Police also searched the offices of the “Ancestral Lands” Association that he founded in 2021, he said.
The Romanian police responded in a statement saying: “The activities are carried out in a criminal case, under the co-ordination of the competent prosecutor’s unit and in compliance with the legal framework.”
It was unclear what they were investigating, but Calin Georgescu, an outsider who won the first round of now canceled presidential elections, has declared zero spending on his campaign, despite reports that influencers paid hundreds of thousands of euros to promote him on TikTok.
“The activities of our institution, in all criminal cases are carried out under the co-ordination of the prosecutor’s units and under the authority of the case prosecutors, aimed at finding out the truth,” police said.
“We reject and renounce baseless accusations of politicizing” police action. “We reiterate that all the staff of our institution work with professionalism, impartiality, balance and political neutrality.”
Since the last ballot was annulled, Georgescu has surged in the polls and has been projected to win the rerun of elections set, if he runs.
Campaign manager Pally and his wife are two former journalists acting as Georgescu’s campaign leaders.
In first round of the Romanian presidential election of November 24, Georgescu, an outsider came from behind to defeat establishment candidates only for the Constitutional Court to annul the results on December 6 after intelligence reports of Russian interference.
With political tensions high, Romania‘s outgoing President, Klaus Iohannis, resigned after nationalist opposition parties and others said they would impeach him.
Analysts predicted that some lawmakers from mainstream pro-European parties could switch sides and give the impeachment effort the required majority.
