Analysis

Annulment of Romanian Presidential Election Results is De Facto Ban on Georgescu's Victory

Romania’s Constitutional Court annulling the results of the first round of presidential election shows that the Romanian political elite was afraid of losing to Calin Georgescu, Moldavian political commentator Cornel Ciurea tells Sputnik.
Sputnik
Georgescu’s victory would lead to power shifting to the adherents of Romania’s sovereignty who are regarded by the powers that be as radicals and anti-system elements, he explains.
“Therefore, these pillars of Romania’s current political elite – social democrats and national liberals first and foremost, and President Iohannis represents national liberals – they could make such decision and force the Constitutional Court to approve it,” Ciurea remarks.
Georgescu never declared himself as a pro-Russian politician, Ciurea noted, he merely wants peace in the region, which in turn would mean resolving the Ukrainian conflict – something that Romania’s political elite does not want.
These views of his led to Georgescu being automatically branded as pro-Russian, which is unacceptable in Romania and by default pushes them to the political fringe, Ciurea explains.
This, he says, allows the Romanian political elite to regard Georgescu as an extremist.
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Tatiana Bitkova, senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences (INION RAN), offers a similar take on the subject, adding that foreign powers – namely, the “Euro-Atlantic institutions” – were interested in seeing Georgescu fail.
She points out that the Romanian Constitutional Court overruling the entire election process was definitely abnormal.
Ciurea, too, concurs that Georgescu’s victory in Romania, a country where the US normally maintains “complete political control,” would have been an inconvenience to the United States.
Therefore, he believes that the fact that Georgescu was a step away from winning the election drove the current US elites to “take certain measures.”
“I think that this decision to annul the election results is, in principle, a ban on Georgescu’s victory,” Ciurea says.
He compares this development to the situation in Georgia where the US and the EU are trying to influence the recent election results, adding that tensions there are rising.
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