This Saturday, the Romanian Prosecutor’s Office searched three homes of a collaborator of Calin Georgescu, the pro-Russian ultranationalist who won the first round of the presidential elections, on suspicion of money laundering, a day after the Constitutional Court annulled the electoral process.
The operation is being carried out in the town of Brasovabout 180 kilometers north of Bucharest, as reported by the Prosecutor’s Office in a statement.
In that note he indicated that the operation is part of an investigation into “the possible involvement of an individual in the illegal financing of the electoral campaign of a candidate for the Presidency of Romania (…)”.
That money, the Prosecutor’s Office points out on its website, could come from illegal activities and having gone through a “money laundering” process.
Although the Prosecutor’s Office does not mention names or amounts, the Digi24 portal cites sources of the investigation by indicating that the person investigated is Bogdan Peschir and that he would have contributed one million euros to the campaign on the social network TikTok of Georgescu, who on the 24th unexpectedly won the first round with 23% of the votes, when he had not exceeded 6% in the polls.
The Constitutional Court yesterday annulled the entire electoral process, which is why the second and final round of elections canceled which had been called for tomorrow and in which Georgescu was going to face the conservative European Elena Lasconi.
That court has justified its decision by the need to “guarantee the impartiality and legality of the electoral process.”
Romanian media indicate that Peschir is the person behind the TikTok account bogprfrom which payments of at least $381,000 for influencers who contributed to making the electoral videos of Georgescu, an almost unknown candidate before the elections.
The Romanian Intelligence Service has further concluded that Georgescu was backed by a interference strategy with a “mode of operation of a state actor”, which he does not name.
The US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinkentook aim directly at Russia yesterday and accused it of being behind a “large-scale and well-financed effort” to influence the Romanian elections, a member country of the European Union (EU) and NATO.
Georgescu, with anti-NATO positions and criticism of the EU, described the decision of the Constitutional Court as an “officialized coup d’état” and assured that “democracy has been trampled.” Also lasconi reacted along those lines.
Romania faces a complicated political situation. The term of the current head of state expires on December 21 and should be replaced temporarily by the president of the Senate.
However, the outgoing president, the liberal Klaus Iohannishas said that he will continue in office until a successor chosen at the polls is sworn in, and that the Government must call the new electoral process.
At the same time, the Executive of a grand coalition between social democrats and conservatives is in office.
The country held legislative elections last day 1 in which the pro-European forces won the support of more than 55% of the votes against the 33% of ultranationalist parties and from the extreme right, critical of the EU.
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