Bucharest (EFE).- Ultra-nationalist Călin Georgescu, the candidate who surprisingly won the first round of Romania’s 2024 presidential elections which was later annulled, was intercepted by police in Bucharest on Wednesday and taken to the Prosecutor General’s Office for possible irregularities in the electoral process.
Georgescu refused to answer journalists’ questions when he arrived at the prosecutor’s office as his team reported the police action on social media.
They stressed that the police appeared as as the former candidate was planning to present his candidacy for the May elections.
“Georgescu was going to present his new candidacy for the presidency (…) About 30 minutes ago, the system (the authorities) stopped him in traffic, and he was taken to the prosecutor’s office for questioning! Where is democracy, where are the partners who should defend democracy?” Georgescu’s team said on Facebook.
The Digi24 newspaper, citing anonymous sources, claimed that Georgescu was being questioned as a suspect in the wide-ranging investigation into alleged irregularities in his candidacy.
A few hours earlier, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement published on its website that 47 house searches had been carried out on Wednesday morning in the districts of Sibiu, Mureș, Timiș, Ilfov, and Cluj.
“Within the framework of these activities, 27 persons and four offices of legal entities were targeted” on suspicion of various crimes, including “actions against the constitutional order,” “public incitement,” “initiating or constituting an organization of a fascist, racist or xenophobic nature” or “false statements about the sources of financing of the election campaign,” the prosecutor’s office said in the release.
Local media says that those under investigation belong to Georgescu’s circle, who referred to the actions ordered by the prosecutor’s office in a brief statement in which he spoke of a “communist” system, which he said tries to “invent evidence to justify the theft of the elections.”
“The communist-Bolshevik system continues with its terrible abuses! Today, at 6:00 am, they again raided dozens of places and arrested dozens of families (…) They are trying to fabricate evidence to justify the theft of the elections and to do everything possible to block a new presidential candidacy of mine,” the controversial candidate wrote on Facebook.
After hearing about his arrest the leader of the ultra-nationalist Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR party), George Simion, went to the prosecutor’s office with other co-religionist MPs to express his support for Georgescu.
“Preventing Mr Georgescu from presenting his candidacy is not normal. It is an abuse of the totalitarian state. We are here with all the AUR deputies, we have come to monitor and guarantee that no law is violated and that no innocent man is detained and arrested,” Simion told the press outside the prosecutor’s office. EFE
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