Right-wing nationalist and EU-skeptic presidential candidate George Simion is demanding that Romania’s presidential election be declared invalid. He accuses France and Moldova of trying to influence the outcome of the election – claims that are also supported by Telegram founder Pavel Durov.

Simion, leader of the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR) party, claims that the election was compromised by “foreign interference” and says he has formally requested that Romania’s Supreme Court invalidate the results.

In a post on the X platform on Tuesday, Simion, who was leading in the polls ahead of the election, wrote that there is evidence of undue influence from “external state and non-state actors” – and specifically named two countries as responsible:

“Neither France nor Moldavia , nor anyone else has the right to interfere in the elections of another state”.

“To all Romanians: ask urgently the Constitutional Court to annul this farce. We will not give up and we will not betray! This is only the beginning of a great victory!” he continued.

I officially ask Constitutional Court TO ANNUL Romanian presidential elections (May 2025).
For the very reasons December elections were annulled: EXTERNAL INTERFERENCES by state and non-state actors.
This time proven with evidence! Neither , nor , nor anyone else has…

— George Simion (@georgesimion) May 20, 2025

Durov: “Ready to testify”

Simion also claims that the electoral register contained 1.7 million fictitious names and that the government had transported voters from neighboring Moldova. His party accuses Moldova’s pro-European government, the Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS), of urging the country’s million-strong diaspora in Romania to vote for his opponent Nicusor Dan.

Dan, mayor of Bucharest, won Sunday’s second round of voting with 54 percent of the vote. He is widely seen as pro-EU, pro-NATO, and pro-US. The election was held after the Constitutional Court invalidated the November results, in which the NATO-critical independent candidate Calin Georgescu won with 23 percent of the vote. The court cited “irregularities” and reports of Russian interference, which Moscow has denied.

It is noteworthy that Simion’s accusations have received unexpected support from Pavel Durov, founder of the messaging app Telegram. Durov has previously claimed that French intelligence services tried to pressure him to censor conservative Romanian channels ahead of the election.

“I am ready to come and testify if it helps Romanian democracy”, he wrote in a post shared alongside Simion’s statement.

I’m ready to come and testify if it helps Romanian democracy. https://t.co/lEq16uKg8b

— Pavel Durov (@durov) May 20, 2025

France denies election interference

France has denied Durov’s allegations and claims that they are disinformation and smear tactics.

“The recent accusations against France are merely a diversionary maneuver from the real threats of interference targeting Romania. France calls on all Romanian political actors to exercise responsibility and defend democracy, the statement said.

Romanian authorities have in turn accused Russia of illegal election interference, but so far without publishing any concrete evidence to support this.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the allegations and called the election “strange”. He claimed that the most popular candidate, Calin Georgescu, had been “forcibly removed”, and criticized what he described as the EU’s long history of interfering in other countries’ elections.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova went even further in her criticism, dismissing the Romanian election results as completely illegitimate.