Romania's government has approved holding presidential elections on May 4
The Romanian government has approved the holding of presidential elections on May 4. This was reported by local TV channel Digi24 on January 16.
"The government's resolutions <...> set the date of the election: May 4, 2025," the publication said.
Romanian government spokesman Mihai Constantin noted that not only presidential elections will be held on that day, but also partial elections for the president of the Bihor County Council and mayors of 17 local communities.
Among other things, the government decided at the meeting to change the voting schedule, which as a result will end at 21:00 (20:00 Moscow time zone) regardless of time zones.
Earlier on January 8, Reuters reported that Romania's ruling coalition had agreed to hold a repeat presidential election in two rounds on May 4 and 18. Until then, outgoing head of state Klaus Iohannis will remain in office.
The first round of the Romanian presidential election was held on November 24, 2024. According to official data, independent candidate Calin Georgescu was leading with 22.94% of the vote. Elena Lasconi, leader of the opposition Romania Salvation Union party, had 19.17% of the vote. George Simion came fourth with 14.17% of the vote. The second round was to be held on December 8, as none of the candidates could get more than 50%.
On November 28, the Romanian CC demanded that the Central Election Commission (CEC) recalculate the results of the first round. On November 29, the head of the Romanian CEC Tony Grebla said that if the Constitutional Court annuls the results of the first round, it could be held again on December 15. In this case, the second round of elections will have to be held on December 29. On December 12, the Supreme Court of Cassation of Romania rejected the appeal of the leader of the far-right party "Alliance for the Unification of Romanians" (AUR), MP George Simion against the decision of the Constitutional Court to annul the results of the first round of the presidential election.
On December 2, Russian President Vladimir Putin ridiculed the recount of votes in the Romanian elections. According to him, the authorities decided to take such a step only because they did not like the candidate who won the first round.