Romania – Romania’s closest equivalent of the supreme court on Thursday urged the official electoral bureau to physically re-tally all the first round presidential votes that gave victory to a far right outsider triggering a political earthquake.
Romania’s Constitutional Court in Bucharest endorsed the recounting of over 9.4 million ballots, and stated it’s decision as the final one.
Later, the Central Election Bureau agreed to the court’s plea to recount the votes and announced that scanned reports from the stations due 10.00 PM Sunday and original ballot papers by Tuesday.
An unknown politician from the far-right, named Calin Georgescu and running independently clinched the first round victory over the sitting prime minister. Georgescu was set to challenge reformist Elena Lasconi of the Save Romania Union party in a December 8 runoff.
People are protesting every night for this man despite he was not expecting all this popularity, due to previous comments that support the Romanian fascist and nationalist leaders, as well as the Russian president Vladimir Putin which leads to the threat to democracy .
Without mentioning Georgescu by name, in a statement to the press after the SCD session in Bucharest on Thursday, president Klaus Iohannis’s office explained that this followed “the analysis of certain documents proving that one presidential candidate enjoyed unbounded visibility on TikTok as a result of favoritism.”
On Monday, Romania’s National Audiovisual Council requested the European Commission analyze the impact of TikTok on the Nov. 24 vote.
Pavel Popescu, the vice president of Romania’s media regulator Ancom, said he would ask the firm to have TikTok suspended in Romania if investigations reveal this network exerting “manipulation of the electoral process” at his country.
The Terhes press office later on Thursday shared on Facebook that the court ordered the recount ‘due to indications of fraud’ and accused the ‘left-wing organization’ of switching valid votes cast for Ludovic Orban who had withdrawn from the race but was still on the ballot to Lasconi.
It was only the second time in the 35 years of post-communist Romania and the first time the Social Democratic Party, Romania’s most powerful party didn’t make it to the second round of the presidential contest. Lasconi won the next election against Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu who resigned as the party leader after losing by only 2,740 votes.
“I am here to defend democracy and urge the Central Election Bureau to do the vote recount wisely,” she said.
Lasconi a former journalist had said in her interview to the AP before the first round of voting that her biggest concern was corruption in Romania which she intended to solve.
“Romania deserves better, not a group of old politicians who use institutions solely for their own benefit!!” Lasconi included in the statement she provided on Thursday.
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