Romania Bars Ultranationalist Candidate From Presidential Race

Calin Georgescu, an ultranationalist candidate who won the first round of Romania’s abruptly aborted presidential election last year, has been barred from competing in a do-over vote scheduled for May, sparking a small but violent protest by his supporters in Bucharest, the Romanian capital.

The Central Electoral Bureau issued a statement late Sunday saying that it had ruled against registering the candidacy of Mr. Georgescu, an outspoken critic of Ukraine and NATO who has voiced sympathy for Russia and Romania’s fascist leadership during World War II. The bureau also said it had rejected three other would-be candidates.

It gave no explanation for the decision, which came less than two weeks after Romanian prosecutors opened a criminal case against Mr. Georgescu for “incitement to actions against the constitutional order,” the “communication of false information” and involvement in the establishment of an organization “with a fascist, racist or xenophobic character.”

Several hundred angry protesters gathered Sunday evening outside the election bureau in Bucharest, screaming “thieves” and “traitors,” and hurling stones and firecrackers at police officers, who responded with volleys of tear gas.

The protest was far smaller than previous street demonstrations by Mr. Georgescu’s supporters but it raised political tensions and fears of violence ahead of the country’s second attempt at a presidential election. The crowd later dispersed.

The Romanian president has limited powers but has often played an important role in the foreign policy of the NATO-member country, which borders Ukraine and has a large air base near the Black Sea that is used by the U.S. military.

Mr. Georgescu, who has the right to appeal his exclusion, denounced the electoral bureau’s decision as a “another direct blow to the heart of democracy around the world.” He said: “Europe is now a dictatorship. Romania is under tyranny.”

Mr. Georgescu stunned the country in November by winning the first round of the original election. Romania’s political establishment had viewed him as a fringe candidatewho posed no serious challenge to more mainstream candidates and a prominent far-right nationalist, George Simion.

Mr. Georgescu, who claims to have spent “zero” on his campaign, was largely unknown to most Romanians until a flood of videos supporting him mysteriously appeared on social media in the final days of the campaign, a phenomenon that his opponents ascribed to Russian interference.

The Constitutional Court, saying that it wanted “to ensure the correctness and legality of the electoral process,” annulled his first-round win two days before a December runoff. While many of Romania’s fellow members of NATO supported the decision, it incensed some European and American conservatives.

“This is crazy,” Elon Musk said Sunday on his social media platform, X, of the decision to bar Mr. Georgescu from competing again.

Vice President JD Vance cited the annulled Romanian vote in a speech last month at a Munich security conference as an example of what he said was Europe’s “retreat” from free speech and democracy.

The Constitutional Court intervened to cancel the original election after Romania’s security service released declassified intelligence reports that pointed to possible Russian interference in the campaign on behalf of Mr. Georgescu but provided no solid evidence of that.