BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — The hard-right nationalist who lost Romania’s presidential election rerun said Tuesday he has asked a top court to annul the election results, alleging that foreign interference and coordinated manipulation affected Sunday’s vote.
George Simion, the 38-year-old leader of the hard-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians had conceded defeat after losing in the runoff to Nicusor Dan, the Bucharest mayor who obtained 53.6% of the vote, a margin of more than 829,000 votes.
Simion said in a statement he has filed a request to Romania’s Constitutional Court to annul the vote, claiming he had “irrefutable evidence” that France, Moldova and “other actors” meddled in the ballot, but did not present any evidence. He also alleged that “deceased people” had participated in the vote.
He alleged “an orchestrated effort to manipulate institutions, direct media narratives and ultimately impose a result that does not reflect the sovereign will of the Romanian people.”
Sunday’s vote was held months after a top court voided the previous election in which the far-right outsider Calin Georgescu led the first round, following allegations of electoral violations and Russian interference, which Moscow has denied.
Simion capitalized on the furor over the annulment of that election and, after coming fourth in last year’s canceled race, allied with Georgescu, who was banned in March from running in the election redo. In the first-round vote on May 4 in the rerun, Simion won a landslide in a field of 11 candidates to enter the runoff.
During the campaign, Simion portrayed his movement as championing conservative values like patriotism, sovereignty and the family, and styled himself as the Romanian analogue to U.S. President Donald Trump.
He said Tuesday he will ask the court to cancel the May rerun on the same grounds as the court’s decision last year.
Hours after voting opened on Friday for Romanians abroad, Simion accused the Moldovan government of election fraud, which both Moldovan and Romanian authorities rejected.
In comment to The Associated Press on Sunday, he reiterated claims that people were being illegally transported to voting stations in Moldova, allegedly affecting 80,000 votes.
He also said that “we don’t have indications that dead people voted. If we will have these indications, we’ll have a press conference.”
Simion also referenced a message sent Sunday by Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov to Romanian users of his platform, which alleged “a Western European government,” accompanied by a baguette emoji, asked his platform “to silence conservative voices” from Romania ahead of the election rerun.
“I’m ready to come and testify if it helps Romanian democracy,” Durov said Tuesday in a post on X.
