Around 20,000 people protested this Sunday in Bucharest against the decision of the Constitutional Court to annul the December presidential elections, canceled two days before the second round due to alleged Russian interference and irregular financing. Called by the extremist party Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), which is increasing the number of attendees, the column of protesters shouted “Freedom.” The march passed peacefully from the emblematic University Square – the place where the Romanian revolution that ended up overthrowing the communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu on Christmas 1989 was born – to the presidential palace, passing by the Government headquarters.
“We support the resumption of elections and the return to democracy. Normally this would be done by resuming the second round of the presidential elections,” said George Simion, leader of the ultranationalist formation that came second, with 18% of the votes, in the legislative elections on December 1, in which the the government coalition composed of social democrats, liberals and the Hungarian minority.
The far-right warned that the protests will continue next week until it is announced that the presidential process will continue and the current president, Klaus Iohannis, resigns, whose mandate was extended until the next elections are called, foreseeably on the following days. May 4 and 18. “In a normal Romania, one step would be for the president to present his resignation at the end of this week; In that case, we will return to the institutional framework and respect the will of the Romanian people,” said Simion, who has already assured that he will support Calin Georgescu, an independent and pro-Russian candidate – winner of the first round on October 24 – if he runs again. to the presidential elections and justice allows it.
“They have given us the label of radicals, but we only want to recover our democracy captured by the traditional parties, which the only thing they have done is share the wealth of the country’s rich resources,” says María, a 35-year-old lawyer, who works on his own. “We need rulers who listen to citizens and improve our quality of life, which has been so deteriorated by the scourge of corruption,” cries Catalin, a 43-year-old public employee at an important state institution, opposed to supporting Ukraine, which maintains that Children of Ukrainian families receive more help than those of Romanian families.
Georgescu’s unexpected victory has further polarized a country that is increasingly skeptical of politicians for their weak fight against corruption. Precisely, last Friday, thousands of supporters of the emerging ultranationalist, supported by his campaign on the Chinese social network TikTok, gathered in front of the Constitutional Court. They demanded that he retract it so that the second round of the presidential elections could be held, in which he started as a favorite against the center-right candidate, Elena Lasconi, a mayor who has also regretted the cancellation of the final contest. Georgescu, who traveled to an unknown destination outside the country on Thursday, appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to force the judicial instance and resume the electoral process.
“It is assumed that the secret services have declassified some documents that ensure the interference of a state actor – probably Russia – but they have not shown the true evidence that this fact has occurred, so I hope that European justice will agree with Georgescu and we recovered democracy, which cost us so much to achieve 35 years ago,” remarks Raluca, 45, a salesperson of cosmetic products who has traveled with her husband from Plymouth, United Kingdom, to join his compatriots.
