Romanian court orders vote recount amidst election turmoil
The winner of the first round of the presidential elections in Romania, the anti-Western and far-right candidate Calin Georgescu, announced that state institutions are attempting to undermine the citizens' choice. The Constitutional Court has decided to recount the votes from the first round of the elections.
The Romanian Constitutional Court ruled on Thursday that a recount of the votes cast on Sunday in the first round of the presidential elections is necessary. In this round, far-right candidate Calin Georgescu secured the most votes.
The Constitutional Court stated in a notice that after reviewing the request from one of the candidates, Cristian Terhes, to annul the elections, it instructed the Central Electoral Bureau (BEC) to recount the first-round votes. The BEC is to submit the results to the Constitutional Court for verification. The hearing is scheduled for 9 AM local time on Friday.
Annulment of elections?
Meanwhile, the court announced its decision to dismiss a request to annul the elections filed by another candidate, Sebastian Constantin Popescu.
Terhes, a candidate from the radical right who received about 1% of the votes in the first round, raised objections concerning votes cast for Elena Lasconi, leader of the center-right party Union Save Romania (USR). Popescu's complaint involved voting for Georgescu, including potential violations in his TikTok campaign.
In the first round, the far-right independent candidate Georgescu, previously a little-known politician, took first place, while Lasconi came in second. The second round of elections is set for December 8.
The decision of the Constitutional Court, which commentators suggest could theoretically lead to the annulment of the first round, has been criticized by many politicians and analysts, who describe it as an "unprecedented decision" and a "threat to democracy."
Lasconi argued that the court interferes with the "democratic process."
It seems that some people want to cling to power at all costs, even at the cost of democracy. I look at the last few days: on Monday, all political leaders seemed to have accepted the election results, even if some did not like them. Sunday was a day of voting, the cleanest in recent years. The result of the vote representing the result of the will of the Romanians — said Ionut Mosteanu from USR.
He added that by Thursday, the Constitutional Court should have confirmed the results of the first round, allowing the campaign for the second round to begin on Friday.
"Playing with a lighter at a gas station"
"What the Constitutional Court is doing at this moment seems to me like playing with a lighter at a gas station and it is extremely risky for democracy because it has already surpassed the election calendar deadline, creating conditions where the elections might be deemed unconstitutional," he added.
Kamil Całus, an analyst at the Polish Center for Eastern Studies, stated that the court's decision "will not change Georgescu's first-place standing, but it may alter the second position". He emphasized that the difference between Lasconi's result and that of the third-place candidate, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), is only 2,740 votes.
"The decision to recount the votes has already been viewed as political," noted Całus, reminding that the Romanian Constitutional Court is widely perceived as being compliant with the PSD. "If it indeed results in a change in the second position, Romania may experience protests on a scale similar to those from 2017-2019," he assessed.
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Bucharest during that time to protest against the PSD's proposed changes to the criminal code, which would have removed penalties for certain corruption offenses.
