2025 presidential elections: CCR eliminates controversial candidates from the electoral race

In a tense electoral context, the candidacies of Călin Georgescu and Diana Şoşoacă were rejected last month by the electoral and judicial authorities in Romania, triggering a wave of protests, criminal investigations and unprecedented accusations of violating constitutional values and the rule of law.

On March 9, 2025, the Central Electoral Bureau (BEC) rejected Călin Georgescu's candidacy in the presidential elections scheduled for May, by 10 votes out of 14. The decision was appealed to the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR), but it unanimously rejected the appeal on March 11, definitively eliminating Georgescu's candidacy.

The CCR based its decision on Decision 2/2024 - known as the "Şoşoacă case" - by which the Court assumed the role of verifying the fulfillment of the substantive constitutional conditions for presidential candidates, an attribute considered by some jurists as controversial and unprecedented in comparative constitutional law. In this sense, Decision 7/2025 of the CCR reinforces the idea that both the BEC and the CCR can reject candidacies that do not respect fundamental constitutional values.

Diana Iovanovici-Şoşoacă, leader of the SOS Romania party, was eliminated from the race as early as 2024, by a CCR decision that found that her candidacy violated the values of democracy and Romania's international commitments, including membership in the EU and NATO. The BEC also invoked this decision in the motivation for the rejection in March of her candidacy for the May 2025 elections. The rejection of Diana Şoşoacă's candidacy was also confirmed by the CCR.

We show that, following the rejection of Georgescu's candidacy, violent protests were generated in Bucharest. His supporters besieged the BEC headquarters, and following the confrontations with the gendarmes, the Prosecutor General's Office opened a large-scale criminal investigation. Furthermore, on March 14, the Prosecutor General's Office ordered several searches to be carried out in the case in which Horaţiu Potra, Călin Georgescum's aide, is indicted, a case that concerns serious crimes against public order and national security. The criminal case investigates acts such as public incitement, failure to comply with the weapons regime, illegal operations with pyrotechnic articles and the communication of false information. Following the searches carried out, a new arsenal illegally held by Horaţiu Potra was discovered and new sums of money were confiscated.

• Illegal Financing and Voter Influencing

Also last month, prosecutors conducted new searches at Bogdan Peşchir, whom they detained for his involvement in the illegal financing of Călin Georgescu's campaign in last year's presidential elections. According to prosecutors, Peşchir allegedly distributed over one million dollars and 300,000 lei through TikTok and Revolut to hundreds of people, in exchange for promoting Călin Georgescu and the campaign materials received from him. Following the evidence in the file, the Prosecutor's Office ordered the initiation of criminal proceedings and requested Bogdan Peşchir's preventive arrest, and the court decided to take this preventive measure, which it reconfirmed on April 10.

We also mention that on March 5, 2025, six people from the "Vlad Ţepeş" group were detained for forming an organized criminal group and treason. The group, whose spiritual leader, according to DIICOT prosecutors, is retired general Radu Theodoru, campaigned for Romania's exit from NATO and the EU, the abolition of political parties and the violent takeover of state power, with the support of foreign agents, including from the Russian Federation. Two of the group's members were arrested preventively, while DIICOT ordered the measure of judicial control for the other four.