Bucharest mayor Nicusor Dan, who decided to run for president after the isolationist candidate Calin Georgescu won the first round of the scrapped presidential ballot last November, argued that the US administration's bias towards Georgescu is only an effect of the asymmetric information caused by insufficient explanations provided by the Romanian authorities.

While Georgescu repeatedly expressed his point of view in the United States, the Romanian state did not provide the necessary and sufficient explanations.

"It is our [Romania's] duty, and I hope this will be done before the repeated elections, to clarify the annulment of the vote," Nicusor Dan said, quoted by Digi24.

US vice president JD Vance has repeatedly criticized the cancellation of the elections in Romania, and American billionaire Elon Musk frequently posts on X, the network he owns, about the cancellation of the election, about the judges involved in the process, and distributes messages posted by Calin Georgescu.

Last December, Romania's Constitutional Court annulled the presidential elections and decided to repeat the process – which was received with relief by part of the electorate that feared a win of Calin Georgescu in front of the reformist candidate Elena Lasconi. However, the cancelation was received with irritation by both Georgescu and Lasconi. 

The ruling coalition formed by Social Democrats (PSD) and Liberals (PNL) was accused of having instructed the annulment because their candidates failed to make it to the second round. The involvement or at least passive attitude of the intelligence services SIE and SRI (possibly in competition) was also suspected. 

The annulment decision was officially based on classified reports from the intelligence services about the interference of the "statal and non-statal entities." While the reports include relevant pieces, they were never aggregated into a concise public report by the Romanian authorities.

The Constitutional Court's reaction was, in broader terms, prompted by the statistically improbable win of the isolationist candidate Georgescu in the first round. But as each of the two major parties (PSD and PNL) had alleged hidden agendas involving support for isolationist candidates (Georgescu, but also George Simion and Diana Sosoaca), the official investigations were stopped, and the intelligence services' reports were not provided in an aggregated form. 

However, this does not mean that serious reasons did not exist for the annulment. Independent investigations and a report from the French government's body dealing with digital disinformation revealed massive and hybrid campaigns favoring Georgescu.

French president Emmanuel Macron concluded, during a session of questions from users on social media regarding the situation in Ukraine, that Russia manipulated elections in Romania and that the cancellation of last year's presidential elections did not shock him as a result of that intervention.

iulian@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Facebook/Nicusor Dan)