Călin Georgescu's reaction to the report from the US Congress. What is the “only fair solution” for the former candidate
Călin Georgescu, the former candidate for the presidency of Romania, stated, in a telephone intervention to Realitatea Plus, that the report drawn up in the House of Representatives, which also aims to cancel the presidential elections in 2024, shows that “the only correct solution is to return to the vote” by organizing new presidential elections, to which early parliamentary elections should be added.
Călin Georgescu claims that the report is “a ray of hope” for Romanians who believe that the cancellation of the elections represented “a painful reality”.
“The annulment of the elections made millions of Romanians feel that their right to vote was taken away. And this is a deep wound that shook the social balance and seriously undermined Romanians' confidence in democracy,” said Georgescu.
A report from the US Congress questions the annulment of the elections in Romania and claims that Brussels interferes through censorship in the elections of the member states
Georgescu wants new elections for the Parliament as well
Citing the fact that the report from the House of Representatives says that clear evidence is needed regarding interference in the smooth running of the electoral process from December 2024, Georgescu requested the declassification of all the documents that were the basis of the decision to cancel the elections.
“The only correct solution is to return to the vote. Honestly and democratically, Romania cannot move forward without the people being asked and respected,” said the former candidate. Asked what he means by “return to the vote”, Călin Georgescu answered: “The return to two things: presidential elections and early parliamentary elections.”
Georgescu claims that the report confirms that there was no Russian interference in the elections, nor through social networks, which is why the authorities in Bucharest must come up with clarifications.
“A solid democracy is not afraid of clarification or verification. The US report appeared as a distinct document based on data, its own elements of analysis, documents that raise doubts related to the censorship exercised internally and the role of European decisions in canceling the elections”, Georgescu also said.
What is in the report from the US Congress
A preliminary report of the Judiciary Committee of the US Congress casts doubt on the decision to cancel the presidential elections in Romania, the Republicans in this committee noting that there is no evidence of Russian interference and accusing the European Commission of interfering, through censorship, in the elections in the member states. The European Commission rejected the allegations, saying they were completely unfounded.
Romania is mentioned 113 times in the preliminary report, the authors of the document questioning the need to cancel the 2024 presidential elections.
Specifically, the report claims that the EU's most aggressive censorship measures were adopted during Romania's 2024 presidential election, when the Constitutional Court annulled the results of the first round, won by little-known independent populist candidate Călin Georgescu.
The decision, the report notes, was made after Romanian intelligence services claimed that Russia had secretly supported Georgescu through a coordinated campaign on TikTok.
TikTok's internal documents presented to the US commission appear to contradict this version of events, the report said. TikTok informed the European Commission that it “did not find or be presented with evidence” to support the Romanian authorities' key claim of Russian interference, the report said.
In late December 2024, the media reported, citing evidence provided by the Romanian tax authority, that the alleged Russian interference campaign had, in fact, been financed by another Romanian political party, the report added, citing information originally disclosed by investigative website Snoop.
The reaction of the president Nicușor Dan
The decision to cancel the presidential elections in Romania from the end of 2024 was an internal legal act with the aim of protecting the constitutional order in the face of threats, President Nicușor Dan said on Wednesday in a post on Facebook.
“Regardless of the technical conclusions of TikTok cited in the report, the decision to cancel the elections was an internal legal act to protect the constitutional order in the face of an asymmetric threat, based on the evaluations of the national security institutions and the authority of the Constitutional Court of Romania,” Nicușor Dan said.
The President points out that this decision taken in December 2024 was based on “documents that unequivocally indicated the distortion of equal opportunities between candidates and the massive vitiation of the electoral campaign by a single candidate (no. Călin Georgescu) through the non-transparent and illegal use of digital technologies and artificial intelligence, as well as through the undeclared financing of the electoral campaign, including in the online environment”, writes Nicușor Dan.
He explicitly names an intervention by Russia in the elections in Romania and specifies that this has already been documented in official reports of NATO, the European Union and the Government of Great Britain. “The malignant interference of the Russian Federation was not limited to a single social media platform, but is the subject of an extensive manipulation campaign with the aim of destabilizing European democracies, an approach that has been going on for many years in the form of a true hybrid war,” the head of state emphasizes.
