By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
BUCHAREST/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis says he won’t resign on December 21 as planned but will leave after a new head of state is elected.
He addressed the nation late Friday after the Constitutional Court annulled the presidential elections, citing irregularities after security services suggested pro-Russian candidate Călin Georgescu won the first round due to Russian interference.
He was to face liberal Elena Lasconi in a runoff on Sunday, December 8. Lasconi is fiercely pro-NATO and pro-European Union and could become Romania’s first woman president. She condemned the court ruling, saying it “tramples Romania’s democracy.”
New presidential elections are now due in February or March after a new government is installed following Sunday’s parliamentary vote, which was held separately from the presidential poll.
“According to the Romanian constitution, the president continues his mandate until the new president takes his oath. So when the new president will be invested, that is when I leave as president,” Iohannis explained in televised remarks.
He said he has no ambition to become the next prime minister. Iohannis said he agreed with the Constitutional Court ruling. Following [the first round of the presidential] elections, I started receiving notes from intelligence services about some strange things,” Iohannis recalled.
“I received the reports, and I was very worried about what I read, so I convened the Romanian National Security Council,” he explained. “The conclusions were grave.”
ILLEGAL SUPPORT
He said it became clear that Georgescu benefitted from “massive illegal election support” despite declaring “zero spending on his election campaign.”
Iohannis said he “received information from services” that the pro-Russia candidate “was illegally supported by a foreign country, which constitutes a national security matter.”
Georgescu ran a successful campaign on the social media platform TikTok.
His popularity exploded in the weeks before the vote, with the candidate gaining tens of millions of views days before the first round, apparently in a campaign backed by Moscow.
Iohannis’ words confirmed Romania’s intelligence agencies’ statements that Georgescu’s win was “not a natural outcome” and that a coordinated social media campaign by a “state actor” artificially propped up his victory.
The documents showed that an alleged pre-organized sleeper network suddenly became active two weeks before the election.
Romanian intelligence concluded that the network used methods typical of a state actor in recruiting and coordinating with others through the messaging platform Telegram.
1 MILLION SPENT
The documents also found that almost 1 million euros ($1.056,000) was spent during the campaign by an individual who supported Georgescu’s candidacy.
Georgescu, who raised eyebrows with his fringe beliefs and expressed support of Romanian World War II Nazi leaders, claimed he had no campaign budget and was helped through volunteers.
On Friday, he said the Constitutional Court decision “is more than a legal controversy. It is basically a formalized coup d’état.”
In televised remarks, he said: “Dear friends, we are in the Christmas fast, and today is St. Nicholas Day. On this day, the Romanian state has taken democracy and trampled it underfoot.”
Yet government leaders in the European Union and the United States view him as a danger to Romania’s fragile democracy, which was introduced after the 1989 Romanian Revolution, following decades of dictatorship.
Despite the turmoil, President Iohannis said, “Romania is a safe, solid country” that will overcome the latest hardships.
Romania is a crucial member state of the NATO military alliance as it has a long border with war-torn Ukraine. It has supported Ukraine with military aid to halt the Russian offensive.
Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
Israeli air defenses intercepted a ballistic missile fired by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels early Wednesday, marking the second consecutive night and fourth attack in a week targeting central Israel in an escalating near-nightly pattern. The same day, the Houthis also launched a drone that crashed in an open area near Ashkelon in southern Israel, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
Congress and federal agencies wasted more than $1 trillion of taxpayer money in 2024, according to an analysis published by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY, who has long called for fiscal responsibility and the end of waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer money.
People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) operatives and spies continue to be arrested in the U.S. The latest include two Chinese spies in California and several arrested in Guam near a U.S. military installation on the same day as an historic live ballistic missile interception test.
Christian churches in Germany are mourning with the loved ones of those who lost their lives or suffered injuries during the terrorist attack on a Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg on Friday, Christian Daily International (CDI) reports.
Russia launched a large-scale missile attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, ignoring appeals from Pope Francis for a Christmas truce in the war-torn nation and around the world.
A beacon of light and hope in a country devastated by war, dozens of newly Christian believers were to be baptized at a special Christmas Day service in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Christian Today (CT) reports.
Dutch King Willem-Alexander urged the Dutch Jewish community on Christmas Day to remain in the Netherlands despite concerns about mounting antisemitism.