Romania’s nationalist frontrunner for May’s presidential election was detained by police while in traffic on Wednesday, February 26th, thirty minutes after his team announced that he would be officially declaring his candidacy later that day. Georgescu was to run no longer as an independent, but as the official candidate of the largest opposition party, AUR (ECR).
The election frontrunner was taken to the General Prosecutor’s Office for questioning, and authorities said he was a suspect in an ongoing case against members of an underground neo-legionary (Romanian neo-fascist) movement with alleged Russian connections, in which he would be involved via his personal chief of security, Horațiu Potra, and his Wagner-linked private mercenary group.
The police action against Georgescu took place on the same day the PO carried out dozens of searches at residences owned by Potra and his associates, which turned up weapons, ammunition, and cash. Nearly $1.5 million was found in a secret safe beneath the floorboards of Potra’s house alone, authorities claimed.
According to Georgescu, however, the raids were part of a politically motivated set-up to prevent him from restarting his presidential campaign, which polls suggest could be successful this time around as well.
Georgescu previously won the first round of the presidential elections in late November and was heading into the runoffs with a comfortable lead in the polls. That is until the socialist-packed Constitutional Court (CCR) annulled the whole race due to still unproven allegations of Russian interference—a clear violation of democratic principles that was also slammed by U.S. Vice President JD Vance in Munich.
“The communist-Bolshevik system continues the heinous abuses,” Georgescu said. “They seek to invent evidence to justify election theft and to do anything to block a new presidential candidacy,” he added, inviting all his supporters for yet another giant protest in the capital on Saturday.
The Prosecutor’s Office stated that it has identified multiple credible links between Georgescu’s entourage and Russia, primarily through the members of the Wagner mercenary group and close associates of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
Horațiu Potra, the head of Georgescu’s private security team, has been known for running a Wagner-adjacent Romanian mercenary group in the Congo and other African countries and had flown to Moscow as recently as September 2024, six weeks before the annulled elections.
The Potra-supplied professional mercenaries in Georgescu’s team also include several people who had allegedly been active in the country’s banned neo-legionary movement, led by Eugen Sechila, who, along with Potra had been sentenced to jail more than a decade ago for organizing an illegal paramilitary group with live weapon training in alleged “survivor camps.”
Despite these links, nationalist opposition parties maintain that the charge brought against Georgescu—that he was allegedly aiding the establishment of a neo-fascist organization—is used as a tool of political pressure without any tangible evidence against him personally.
George Simion, the leader of the largest opposition bloc, AUR, and Vice-President of the European Conservative and Reformist (ECR) party, firmly condemned the detention of Georgescu and called on the gathering supporters to protest outside the Prosecutor’s Office until he’s released.
“Preventing Georgescu from submitting his application is not normal. It’s an abuse by the totalitarian state,” Simion told reporters on the scene. “The detention also comes just a day after the three nationalist opposition parties—AUR, SOS, and POT—submitted a no-confidence motion against the country’s establishment government that was formed just a few months ago by a grand coalition between the social democrat PSD (S&D) and center-right PNL (EPP).
To succeed, however, the nationalists need the support of the fourth opposition party, the pro-EU liberal USR (Renew). USR leader Elena Lasconi also slammed the establishment parties for “destroying democracy” by having the election annulled and even joined the Right’s successful bid to force former President Klaus Iohannis’ resignation earlier this month.
This time, however, USR says it won’t support the initiative to bring down the government at least until the presidential elections are over, and will only join if it sees a solid chance for participating in the next government.
They just arrested the person who won the most votes in the Romanian presidential election. This is messed up. https://t.co/hXjR4hrBcu
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 26, 2025
