Romania’s president has tendered his resignation in what he described as an effort to spare the country further political embarrassment, two months after a presidential election was cancelled due to alleged Russian meddling.
Klaus Iohannis on Monday said he would step down in two days to pre-empt an effort led by the far-right opposition to impeach him for his failure to assume responsibility for the election fiasco.
In December, the country’s constitutional court took the unprecedented step of annulling the presidential vote, which had been unexpectedly won by the pro-Russian ultranationalist candidate Călin Georgescu.
“To spare Romania and Romanian citizens from this crisis, from this unnecessary and negative development, I resign from the position of president of Romania,” Iohannis said. The president of the Senate, Ilie Bolojan, will serve as interim president until elections are held in May.
Iohannis had pledged in December to stay on until a successor was sworn in. But three far-right opposition parties gathered sufficient parliamentary support to start impeachment procedures, which were set to kick off on Tuesday. The process could have led to Iohannis being suspended from office pending the result of a referendum on whether he should be removed from office.
The political turmoil has already tarnished Romania’s reputation as a steadfast Nato ally, which shares the alliance’s longest border with Ukraine and is home to a massive planned military base near the Black Sea.
Georgescu has repeatedly spoken against his country’s pro-Ukraine policy and has praised Russian leader Vladimir Putin. His inexplicable rise on social media to top the first round of the now cancelled vote has previously been described by Iohannis as having been orchestrated by Moscow.
But Romanian authorities have yet to provide evidence of illegal campaign financing or other ways Russia is alleged to have meddled. Georgescu has denied having ties to Russia and the Kremlin has also dismissed the accusations.
Georgescu, who has held multiple rallies describing himself as the legitimate “president-elect”, said Iohannis’ resignation was a “victory for the people of Romania”. He said on X it was now time to “return to the rule of law” and carry on with the second round of presidential elections annulled in December.
The outgoing president, who has ruled the country since 2014, said the impeachment would have had a “negative” impact on the election campaign, which is yet to start. “There would have been no discussion about how Romania will move forward. The candidates would not even be able to present their ideas,” said Iohannis.
The political turmoil catches Romania at a particularly difficult time when it struggles to cut its budget deficit, which was Europe’s highest last year at more than 8 per cent of GDP.
By choosing to step down, Iohannis argued, he sought to shield his country from “long-lasting and very negative” external consequences.
“Absolutely no one among our partners would understand why Romania is dismissing its president . . . We would effectively be the laughing stock of the world.”
Independent analyst Radu Magdin said people had grown angry in recent weeks that Iohannis was still in office, as if nothing had happened. The president’s “extended stay fuelled the anti-system passions in the country”, he said.
Far-right AUR party leader George Simion, who was the main force behind the effort to impeach the president, celebrated the resignation and said it was “time to bring the second round back”, in reference to the scrapped vote. Simion is backing Georgescu for president but has indicated he could run in his stead if the Constitutional Court dismisses Georgescu’s bid.
Pro-EU liberal Elena Lasconi, who had qualified in the run-off against Georgescu in December, said the president’s resignation came “very late . . . and it does not even bring us answers”.
“Why did they cancel the elections, how do we protect ourselves from the Russian games, who protects us from manipulation, can we guarantee the security of the next election? Romania is more vulnerable than ever,” she said. “[Under Iohannis] democracy collapsed and this cannot be forgiven.”