Romania and its judiciary now face a difficult choice
It’s three days since I asked George Simion if he would accept the result if he lost, and he said “yes” with the sort of shrug that suggested it was a stupid question.
Turns out it was quite a good question, after all.
Because Mr Simion has just stated that he won’t accept the result, after all.
He’s alleging the French government tried to limit the amount of his campaign material that appeared on social media, echoing an accusation made by Pavel Durov, the Russian founder of the messaging app Telegram.
Durov claimed “a Western government” had asked his company “to silence conservative voices in Romania” ahead of the election.
He added an emoji of a baguette on to his message as a not-too-subtle clue to the government he meant.
Durov is enmeshed in a legal row with French authorities. He was arrested by French police in August 2024, facing the allegation that a lack of content moderation on Telegram had allowed criminal activities.
He was forced to remain in France until two months ago, when he was allowed to return to his home in Dubai.
Simion has now told his followers to only use Telegram, adopting that to be their only form of communication.
What this means for Romania is more turmoil and more rancour.
Nicusor Dan is due to be installed as president just at a time when Simion is encouraging his millions of supporters to deluge the country’s highest court with demands that the election be run again.
But the country, and its judiciary, face a difficult choice.
They annulled the December election on the basis of evidence that even Georgescu’s opponents thought was questionable.
Can they really now ignore Simion’s claims and press on regardless without accusations that they favour the mainstream politicians over the populists?
And that, of course, would hugely fuel Simion’s long-running accusation that the establishment is out to thwart him.
It is, in short, a bit of a mess.
