Romania Bans Right-Wing Frontrunner from Presidential Election

Romania's central election authority has banned Calin Georgescu, a populist candidate and frontrunner, from running in May's presidential election re-run.

"Europe is now a dictatorship, Romania is under tyranny!" Georgescu said in a post on X, following the decision. "I have one message left! If democracy in Romania falls, the entire democratic world will fall!"

Trump’s administration has taken an interest in Romania’s presidential election since it was canceled in May because of Russian collusion allegations in Georgescu's favor.

SpaceX CEO and DOGE leader Elon Musk chimed in and shared his reaction to the decision.

"This is crazy," Musk wrote on X.

Kari Lake, Trump administration senior advisor for the US agency for global media, also reacted and compared what is happening in Romania to what "they tried with Trump here in America."

"Do you love your country & want to put it first?" Lake posted on X. "Then, the Globalists want you removed from the ballot & silenced. They tried it with Trump here in America. They did it to Bolsanaro in Brazil. Now, they're doing it to Georgescu in Romania. The people should dictate their country's future. Not the international order & their captured court."

Georgescu, who won the first round of Romania's canceled presidential election last year, was taken into custody for questioning by the country's top prosecutors back in February.

Romania's Constitutional Court made the unprecedented move to annul the election two days ahead of the Dec. 8 runoff after Georgescu's first-round win. He had polled in single digits and declared zero campaign spending, according to The Associated Press. Allegations of Russian interference and electoral violations quickly emerged. After the election cancelation, prosecutors launched an investigation into alleged campaign funding fraud, as well as alleged antisemitism and hate speech.

The Trump administration has criticized Romania for canceling last year's presidential election, with Vice President JD Vance alleging that the court's ruling was based on "flimsy suspicions" and "enormous pressure" from Romania’s neighbors.

Vance said in December, "Romania straight up canceled the results of a presidential election based on the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental neighbors."

He also warned European leaders that they cannot win a "democratic mandate" by "censoring your opponents or putting them in jail," nor by "disregarding your basic electorate on questions like who gets to be a part of our shared society."

"To many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old, entrenched interests hiding behind ugly Soviet-era words like misinformation and disinformation, who simply don't like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion or, God forbid, vote a different way, or even worse, win an election," Vance said.

Georgescu, a staunch critic of NATO and Western support for Ukraine, has sparked controversy in the past for describing Romanian fascist and nationalist leaders from the 1930s and 1940s as national heroes, according to The AP.

He has also praised Russian President Vladimir Putin in the past as "a man who loves his country," and has called Ukraine "an invented state."