Romanians protest election cancellation
Tens of thousands of Romanians angered by the cancellation of a presidential election marched through Bucharest to demand that the ballot should go ahead and that outgoing centrist President Klaus Iohannis should resign.
In a move that polarised voters, Romania's top court voided the presidential election on Dec. 6, two days before the second round.
The cancellation came after state documents showed frontrunner Calin Georgescu, a critic of NATO, had benefited from an unfair social media campaign likely to have been orchestrated by Russia, accusations Moscow has denied.
The court ordered that the election be rerun in its entirety. The pro-European coalition government has yet to approve a calendar for the election, although party leaders agreed to hold the two rounds on May 4 and May 18.
Iohannis, whose term expired on Dec. 21, will stay on until his successor is elected.
Tens of thousands of protesters, including left-wingers and those angered by the way the election was cancelled, joined the protest organised by the opposition hard-right Alliance for Uniting Romanians (AUR), Romania's second-largest party.
"We ask for a return to democracy by resuming the election with the second round," AUR leader George Simion told reporters.
We hope that at last he will at least leave the Cotroceni Palace and we will re-enter constitutional order, that the president of the Senate will return for 3 months as a president, and that free elections will be organized," he added.
Organizers said 100,000 people were at the protest, but riot police along the march estimated the numbers at around 20,000. Protesters waved flags and shouted "Freedom" and "Bring back the second round."
It remains unclear whether Georgescu, who is critical of NATO and opposes Romanian support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, will be allowed to run for president again.
