Romanian far-right populist Calin Georgescu has lost his appeal against a ruling barring him from participating in May’s presidential election. The Constitutional Court issued the final ruling on Tuesday afternoon after deliberating for two hours. It said the decision was unanimous.The Central Electoral Bureau had earlier rejected Georgescu’s candidacy for a rerun of the presidential election in May. Georgescu had won the first round of last year’s presidential vote, but it was annulled after intelligence revealed Russia had been involved in setting up almost 800 TikTok accounts backing him.On Sunday, the election bureau said Georgescu’s candidacy did not “meet the conditions of legality”, as he “violated the very obligation to defend democracy”. Georgescu appealed that verdict the following day.In a Facebook video on Tuesday night, Georgescu did not call for further protests – but instead suggested supporters could choose another candidate to back in the re-run election in May.”If you want to support anyone by signing new lists for the presidential campaign, please do as your conscience tells you,” he said. “It seems democracy and freedom are taking their last breath these days.”But we need to show now, more than any other time, that our choice matters in a peaceful and democratic way,” Georgescu added.Many of the protesters outside the court had Romanian flags draped around their shoulders. Some held up Orthodox Christian icons and one clutched a large wooden crucifix. A man dressed in a traditional peasant smock scaled a lamppost with a giant Romanian flag and waved it enthusiastically over the crowd.They chanted “Calin Georgescu is president” and “freedom”, and condemned the judges as traitors. One woman had a sign that read “Stop dictatorship”.It took a while for news of the ruling upholding the ban to reach the crowd. When it did, there were loud “boos” directed at the judges inside.The crowd soon became noisy and angry, saying they had come to the streets to defend democracy.Calin Georgescu, the man they support, has come from the far-right fringes of Romanian politics, but h …
