By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
BUCHAREST/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – A pro-Russian presidential candidate has condemned Romania’s top court’s decision to order a recount of votes in the first round of the presidential election.
Calin Georgescu’s surge to victory in the European Union and NATO member state prompted Romania’s top security body to warn that the country was “a key target” for hostile Russian actions.
Having polled in single digits before Sunday’s vote, the 62-year-old far-right politician surprised friends and foes by winning.
However, Georgescu said in a statement that state institutions, including the Constitutional Court, “were trying to deny people’s vote in Sunday’s election.”
His centrist contender, Elena Lasconi, whom he was to meet in a run-off on December 8, shared his assessment.
“The Constitutional Court is interfering in the democratic process for the second time,” she wrote, referring to a previous ruling to ban a far-right politician from running in the presidential election. “One combats extremism through votes, not backstage games.”
Georgescu gained many votes from young voters and Romanians living abroad, and his campaign relied heavily on the social media platform TikTok.
SUSPENDING TIKTOK?
On Wednesday, a senior official at Romania’s telecoms regulator called for TikTok to be suspended pending an investigation into the platform’s role in the vote.
The standoff comes ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary election, which was due to be impacted by Georgescu’s victory. The far right is expected to do well.
On Thursday, an Atlasintel poll obtained by the HotNews website showed the radical right Alliance for Uniting Romanians (AUR) in first place with 22.4 percent of the vote, followed by the Social Democrats (PSD) with 21.4 percent.
That worries critics as Georgescu has praised 1930s Romanian fascist politicians as “national heroes and martyrs.”
He has been critical of the NATO military alliance and Romania’s support for Ukraine.
Georgescu said the country “should engage, not challenge” Russia. Moscow has denied interfering in elections.
The court postponed a ruling for November 29 and asked for a recount. The court will only provide the reasoning for its decision in a statement at a later date.
VALIDATING RESULTS
By law, the top court must validate the first round result by November 29 for the run-off vote to happen on December 8 as scheduled.
However, the head of the country’s election authority said recounting the 9.46 million votes currently in archives at courthouses across Romania would take days.
Social Democrat Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu ranked third on Sunday, only 2,740 votes behind runner-up Lasconi. Many of the top court’s nine judges were appointed by the Social Democrat Party.
The decision to call for a recount was made after conservative presidential candidate Cristian Terhes, who got 1 percent of the votes on Sunday, challenged the ballot’s result.
Terhes asked that the Court annul the election outcome, saying Lasconi got votes transferred to her from another candidate who had withdrawn from the race but still appeared on the ballot.
Romania’s political turmoil comes at a difficult time for the region, with nearby wartorn Ukraine and Russia using increasingly heavy weapons against each other.
Bucharest has supported Kyiv militarily, but Georgescu has criticized the aid and even questioned Romania’s NATO membership.
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
The United Nations Security Council will vote Monday evening at 5:00 p.m. New York time on a U.S.-drafted resolution establishing an International Stabilization Force (ISF) to be deployed throughout the Gaza Strip. The draft is identical to the version presented to the Council last Thursday and outlines a multinational force that will secure borders, destroy military infrastructure, and oversee the demilitarization of Gaza. It also provides for the training of a Palestinian police force that will join the multinational force’s operations.
President Donald Trump abruptly reversed himself Sunday night, announcing that he now supports House Republicans voting to release the long-sought Epstein files—just days after blasting several GOP lawmakers for pushing the effort.
The U.S. Supreme Court has agree to take up a case that could have an effect on the 2026 midterm elections.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday issued his strongest public denunciation yet of extremist settler violence in Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank), promising “very forceful action” amid a sharp rise in attacks that has drawn concern from Israeli security officials, international partners, and Washington.
In the immediate aftermath of Democrats losing the budget showdown that plunged Washington into a weeks-long government shutdown, House Republicans say the Left is now scrambling for a distraction — reviving the long-dormant fight over the Jeffrey Epstein files in what GOP leaders call a transparently political maneuver to wound President Donald Trump.
Iranian authorities have begun large-scale cloud-seeding operations in a desperate bid to generate rainfall as the country confronts its most severe drought in decades, state media reported over the weekend.
President Donald Trump is expected to finalize a landmark agreement with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that would allow Riyadh to acquire advanced U.S. F-35 stealth fighter jets—part of a sweeping package of economic, defense, and normalization initiatives set to be unveiled at the White House this week.