Calin Georgescu’s election victory was annulled last year over allegations of illegal activities related to campaign financing
Romanian police have arrested Calin Georgescu, the front-runner in last year’s annulled presidential election, and conducted dozens of raids on his supporters and people tied to his campaign, local media reported on Wednesday.
A critic of NATO and the EU and an opponent of sending aid to Ukraine, Georgescu made headlines in November last year when he unexpectedly garnered 23% of the vote in the first round of the presidential election in Romania. However, the Constitutional Court annulled the results shortly before the second round, citing intelligence documents alleging ‘irregularities’ in his campaign.
Georgescu’s communications team has said on Facebook that he was arrested just as he was about to submit his new candidacy for the presidency.
”The system stopped him in traffic and he was pulled over for questioning at the Prosecutor General’s Office! Where is democracy, where are the partners who must defend democracy,” his team wrote.
Prior to his arrest, Georgescu condemned the raids on his supporters in a post on Facebook.
“The communist-Bolshevik system continues its odious abuses,” he wrote, accusing the Romanian authorities of trying to “invent evidence to justify the theft of the elections and to do anything to block my new candidacy for the presidency.”
The Romanian Prosecutor General’s Office is reportedly investigating Georgescu over allegations of involvement “in a fascist organization and the promotion of controversial ideologies and historical figures in the public space,” G4Media outlet reported, citing sources close to the investigation.
According to media reports, police found “weapons, live ammunition, and more than a million dollars hidden in a safe” during the raids.
