Romania conducts searches in election campaign financing case - Reuters

Romanian prosecutors today raided several properties as part of an investigation into possible illegal financing of the country's presidential election.

Prosecutors did not name the candidate whose campaign is being investigated, but documents declassified by the National Security Council this week focused on the campaign of Călin Georgescu, a far-right, pro-Russian critic of NATO.

Mr. Georgescu, who wants to end Romania's support for Ukraine against Russia's invasion, had only single-digit support in opinion polls before the first round of voting on November 24, but surged to the top in that round, raising questions about the legitimacy of the election.

The prosecutor's office reported that three searches took place on Saturday in the central city of Brasov.

“The searches target the possible involvement of an individual in the illegal financing of the electoral campaign of a candidate for the Presidency of Romania, through the use of sums of money... (that) could come from the commission of crimes, being subsequently introduced into a money laundering process,” the prosecutor's office said in a statement.

Cancellation of election results in Romania

On November 24, Romania held the first round of the presidential election. According to the results of the voting, Călin Georgescu and Elena Lasconi advanced to the second round.

However, on December 6, the Constitutional Court of Romania canceled the results of the first round of elections. This happened after the court reviewed requests that cited declassified documents, according to which the Georgescu campaign was the result of an organized manipulation outside Romania.

Read more about why the election results in Romania were annulled and what will happen next in RBC-Ukraine's article.