Romania's Central Electoral Bureau decided at its meeting today to reject five candidates for the country's presidential election in May and to register five others, Agerpres reported, BTA reports.
The rejected candidacies include those of Romanian MEP and chairwoman of the far-right party “SOS Romania“ Diana Soshoaca, as well as four independent candidates – Matei Vania, Paul Ispas, Constantin Vieriu and Maria Marcou.
The accepted candidacies are those of the leader of the opposition reformist party “Union for the Salvation of Romania“ Elena Lasconi, the leader of the opposition Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, Gheorghe Simion, Cristian Terhes (Romanian National Conservative Party), Lavinia Săndru (Humanist Social Liberal Party) and John Ion Banu (independent).
The Central Electoral Bureau said it would publish the full text of the decisions on its official website.
Independent candidate Calin Georgescu surprisingly won the first round of the presidential election in Romania last year. Just two days before the runoff, the Constitutional Court annulled the result and ordered the entire election process to start over. The decision was made based on intelligence reports indicating evidence of Russian interference in the election process. Moscow denies these accusations.
Georgescu's candidacy for the new presidential elections this year was rejected by the Central Electoral Bureau, and the decision was confirmed by the Constitutional Court.