The Romanian constitutional court on Tuesday upheld a ban preventing the far-right candidate Călin Georgescu from participating in the country’s presidential election.
The ruling, which is final, backed a decision by Romania’s electoral authority on Sunday to throw out Georgescu’s bid to run in May’s vote after he allegedly breached election rules.
The court’s president Marian Enache said the ruling had been adopted “unanimously” by the panel of judges.
Georgescu on Tuesday said he saw himself as a “president for peace” and that he wanted to turn Romania into a “Switzerland of the east”. He urged voters to “follow your conscience” when backing any alternative candidates that may emerge.
Georgescu had topped a first-round vote in November, but the result was subsequently annulled by the constitutional court following allegations that he had illegally benefited from a campaign orchestrated by Moscow. He has previously expressed admiration for Russian and US presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.
Protesters shouted “thieves” as they gathered outside the court in Bucharest on Tuesday in support of Georgescu, who was leading the opinion polls with the backing of more than 40 per cent of voters. Previous demonstrations escalated with dozens of police officers and protesters injured in clashes on Sunday.
The far-right candidate had appealed against Sunday’s ban, arguing that the court’s previous decision to annul the elections was not sufficient grounds to bar him from running.
US vice-president JD Vance has also attacked the decision to ban Georgescu, which he suggested showed that European “entrenched interests” were “running in fear” from voters.
The Kremlin slammed the ban on Georgescu as “trampling upon all democratic norms in the centre of Europe”.
Dmitry Peskov, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, added: “Any elections that will exclude him will be illegitimate”.
Georgescu has attracted backing from far-right politicians across Europe. Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, on Monday said on X that “If Mr Georgescu is being wronged simply because he has a different opinion, he must be given European protection.”
Italian deputy premier Matteo Salvini called the ban “a Soviet-style Euro-coup”, adding that Romanians “are robbed of their right to vote by a very serious theft of democracy”.
