George Simion, the 38-year-old leader of the hard-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, has filed a request to annul Romania’s presidential election results with the Constitutional Court. He alleges foreign interference and coordinated manipulation affected the vote, particularly from France, Moldova, and other actors. However, he fails to provide evidence for these claims.
Simion had conceded defeat after losing to Bucharest mayor Nicusor Dan, who secured 53.6% of the vote, a margin of more than 829,000 votes. Simion previously allied with Calin Georgescu, who was banned from running in the election redo, and won a landslide in last year’s canceled race.
During the campaign, Simion portrayed his movement as championing conservative values like patriotism, sovereignty, and the family. He styled himself as the Romanian analogue to US President Donald Trump. Despite allegations of electoral violations and Russian interference in previous elections, Simion claims that there was an “orchestrated effort” to manipulate institutions and media narratives.
The Constitutional Court previously voided the previous election due to allegations of electoral violations and Russian interference. However, Simion now seeks to annul the current election results on similar grounds, which both Moldovan and Romanian authorities have rejected. He also made unsubstantiated claims about Romanians abroad voting illegally in Moldova’s election.
Simion’s requests come after a message from Telegram founder Pavel Durov was shared, alleging that a Western European government had asked his platform to silence conservative voices from Romania ahead of the election rerun.
Source: https://apnews.com/article/romania-election-annulment-europe-simion-hardright-09647fefa8198d2f845f654639f50feb