Protests and preparations for the presidential election

Romania is bracing for the presidential election this year in May, though many people believe a second round of voting should take place after the cancellation of the first round in December, last year

Daniel Bilț, 13.01.2025, 14:00

The ruling coalition in Romania made up of the PSD-PNL-UDMR last week decided that the presidential election be held on May 4^th and 18^th. The Executive in Bucharest is now preparing the documents needed for making these dates official. The country’s Social-Democratic Prime Minister, Marcel Ciolacu, says there is obviously a huge public expectation related to the date of the presidential election. However, the people in the street have conveyed a more radical message: the Constitutional Court cancelled the first round of voting in an unjustified manner and should now re-think the ruling it made on December 6^th.

Such a review appeal was made by the lawyers of the independent candidate, Călin Georgescu, a pro-Russia extremist, who unexpectedly emerged as winner of the first presidential round held on November 24^th. The moment of the appeal registration was accompanied by an unauthorized protest staged by thousands of Georgescu’s supporters.

The Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), the flagship party of the sovereignist trio in the Romanian Parliament, staged a large-scale protest in Bucharest, during which people from all over the country called for the resumption of the second round of the presidential election and the sacking of president Klaus Iohannis.

‘The Meeting for Democracy’, as it was titled, also included a march between the government and presidential buildings.

“In a normal Romania, at the end of this day, the illegal resident of the Cotroceni Palace, Klaus Werner Iohannis, will announce his resignation and we’ll rejoin the institutional framework so that we may be able to observe the will of the Romanian people”, the AUR leader, George Simion says. According to him, the protests will continue until all the protesters’ claims are met, and thousands of people will take to the streets on January 24^th, when we celebrate the Union of the Romanian Principalities. The USR president, Elena Lasconi, who also qualified for the presidential race together with Georgescu, says that she understands the Romanians who took to the streets in order to point out to the Constitutional Court, quote, ‘the fact that it used its power discriminately’. She says the solution is neither in the street, nor on social networks, though.

In her opinion, it would be normal for president Iohannis to step down and let the head of the Senate take over the country’s leadership as an interim.

We recall the CCR cancelled the presidential election in November-December last year, after the country’s Higher Defence Council had published a report on foreign interferences in the election process that favoured Georgescu and the alleged illegal funding of his campaign.

However, the facts, on which the Court based its unprecedented ruling, have not been confirmed by legal investigations yet, which casts a question mark upon its decision. As a result Klaus Iohannis is still Romania’s president, although he finished its second and last mandate on December 21.

(bill)