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 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
U.S.-Iran peace negotiations faced new turbulence Thursday after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned commercial vessels against using routes outside Tehran’s approved passage through the Strait of Hormuz, while Iranian officials also rejected U.S. claims that unfrozen funds would be used to buy American agricultural products.
Fulani herdsmen attacked a Christian village in Plateau state, Nigeria, early Monday, killing 28 Christians, including a pastor, after reportedly being guided toward the homes of church leaders, according to Christian Daily International-Morning Star News.
U.S. Central Command said Wednesday that American forces killed a senior ISIS leader in a precision airstrike in northwest Syria, as the terror group seeks to exploit the country’s unstable security environment following years of war and political upheaval.
An incident at a beauty salon in Pakistan’s largest city has sparked renewed debate about discrimination against Christians after a customer reportedly refused to be served by a Christian employee because of her faith.
A series of major earthquakes shook different parts of the world within less than 24 hours, killing nearly 200 people, injuring many more, and briefly raising fears of a wider global seismic crisis.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel will not withdraw from its security zone in southern Lebanon, insisting the Israel Defense Forces will remain in key positions for as long as necessary to protect Israeli citizens from Hezbollah and other jihadist threats.
A federal judge in Boston on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from enforcing major portions of President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at tightening rules for mail-in voting, delivering another legal setback to the White House as the administration presses its election integrity agenda ahead of November’s federal elections.