The populist frontrunner in Romania’s annulled election, Călin Georgescu, was detained by police and charged by prosecutors on Wednesday, the move against the politician just days after U.S. Vice President JD Vance warned of threats against democracy in the Eastern European nation.
Several people, including former Romanian presidential candidate Călin Georgescu, were detained, and multiple raids were carried out on the properties of his associates on Wednesday, including his personal bodyguard Horaţiu Potra, a former mercenary group leader in Africa.
Georgescu, who ran as a right-wing populist independent in last year’s presidential elections, secured a surprise victory in the first round of voting in November. However, amid accusations of Russian interference, the Constitutional Court of Romania annulled the results and cancelled the second round of voting.
In a post on his Facebook account, a spokesman for Georgescu claimed that before he was detained on Wednesday, the politician was on his way to submit paperwork for his candidacy for the rescheduled presidential election in May, suggesting but not proving the actions were meant to interfere with the democratic process.
Romanian police, without naming Georgescu, said earlier that they had carried out 47 searches across the country targeting 27 people. They then announced an indictment against an unnamed defendant, who was identified in local media as Georgescu.
The former presidential candidate has been accused of “incitement to actions against the constitutional order,” the “communication of false information,” making “false statements”, the “initiation or establishment of an organization with a fascist, racist or xenophobic character,” the “promotion, in public, of the cult of persons guilty of committing crimes of genocide against humanity and war crimes, as well as the act of promoting, in public, fascist, legionary, racist or xenophobic ideas, concepts or doctrines,” and the “initiation or establishment of an anti-Semitic organization, the accession or support, in any form, of such an organization.”
Supporters of nationalist party AUR (Alliance for the Union of Romanians) and of presidential candidate Calin Georgescu hold a banner reading “democracy” as march in Bucharest on January 12, 2024 to protest against the annullement of the second tour of the presidential election asking president Iohannis resign. (Photo by Daniel MIHAILESCU / AFP) (Photo by DANIEL MIHAILESCU/AFP via Getty Images)
Following the controversial annulment of the election, former President Klaus Iohannis declassified multiple intelligence reports alleging that a network with the hallmarks of a state actor had waged an influence campaign on the Chinese-owned TikTok social media platform in favour of Georgescu’s candidacy.
Romania’s SRI national intelligence agency claimed that nearly a million euros was spent on the campaign to promote content in favour of Georgescu. They went on to claim that Russia was behind the operation and that Moscow had also orchestrated a series of cyber attacks. Critics say these claims are unproven, and the declassified intelligent report was heavy on accusations but light on proof.
Facing a potential impeachment vote from both left and right-wing opposition groups, who claimed that the annulment of the election was intended to keep the political establishment in Bucharest in power, President Iohannis resigned from his post earlier this month.
While Georgescu has spoken positively in the past of Russian leader Vladimir Putin and has been critical of NATO’s operations in Romania, where two major bases are located, the former presidential candidate has denied being “pro-Russian”. Georgescu has claimed rather that he is merely a pro-Romanian populist along the lines of Donald Trump, saying in December that Trump “knows what he wants, he loves his people, he put America first, just like I put Romania first … we have the same ideology.”
The annulment of the election in Romania was heavily criticised by U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who said at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month: “When we see European courts cancelling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we’re holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard.”
“To many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old entrenched interests hiding behind ugly, Soviet-era words like misinformation and disinformation, who simply don’t like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion, or God forbid vote a different way, or even worse, win an election,” Vance added.
Following the detention of Georgescu on Wednesday, Trump ally Elon Musk commented: “They just arrested the person who won the most votes in the Romanian presidential election. This is messed up.”
According to Romanian news outlet Digi24, several hundred people gathered outside of the police station following Georgescu’s arrest, singing the national anthem, chanting his name, and the message: “Last resort, another revolution”.
In a statement before his arrest, Georgescu said: “We live in communism, there is nothing free and legal in everything that is happening. I won’t give up, I rely on your support.”