Original article (in Montenegrin) was published on 11/12/2024; Author: Nina Djuranovic
Romania’s Constitutional Court declared the presidential election invalid due to irregularities discovered in the first round of voting, which took place on November 24th.
Secret service documents pointed to interference by a state actor in the election process, and evidence was also discovered of the existence of a network that supported the ultranationalist independent candidate Calin Gheorghescu.
The court’s decision has caused political turmoil in the country, and in recent days, a photo from a mass protest has been shared, with various claims. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) (archived)
Some users claim that the crowd in the photo is protesting exactly against Gheorghescu.
“Romanians stood up against the Russian clown. Romanians know how to get things done.”
On the other hand, some users, sharing the very same photo, claim that the Romanian people expressed their protest against the Constitutional Court’s decision to annul the elections. “In Romania, there were elections and a person wanted by the people won. The government tried to use its levers of power to annul the elections, but they forgot about one small thing, the Romanian people”. This is how they stood behind their state prosecutor, a woman who does not hesitate to arrest politicians. A fierce denouement is expected and I would not like to be in the shoes of some of those Romanian politician stinkers, after all, they will get what they asked for.”
![](https://seecheck.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/rum.jpg)
As DW writes, Gheorghescu, who mainly represents right-wing, pro-Russian and esoteric views, completely unexpectedly won the first round of the presidential election.
On December 6th, just before the second round of voting, Romania’s Constitutional Court invalidated the first round and ordered a complete repeat of the elections.
It is true that protests have recently been organized in several cities in Romania in reaction to the results of the first round of the presidential elections, after the right-wing candidate Calin Gheorghescu won a significant number of votes.
The protesters, mostly young people and students, expressed concern about his anti-European views and connections to extremist ideas, especially because there is a belief among the Romanian population that Gheorghescu’s policies could jeopardize Romania’s European orientation.
Protests were held in cities such as Bucharest, Timisoara, Sibiu and Iași.
However, the photo that is the subject of this analysis and that is being shared on Facebook is not current.
A reverse image search took us to 2017, and the results show it was recorded in Bucharest.
The same photo was shared by Belgian geopolitics expert, writer and professor Koert Debeuf on the former Twitter, the social network X (archived).
![](https://seecheck.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/rum2.jpg)
In 2017, a protest was organized in which the Romanian people rebelled against the government’s attempt to decriminalize certain corruption crimes.
This photo shows an anti-government protest in support of the then-head of the Romanian Anti-Corruption Directorate, Laura Codruta Kovesi, and has nothing to do with the recent elections in Romania.
Due to all of the above, we rate the posts as disinformation.
The “Disinformation” rating is given to a media report that contains a “mix“ of facts and incorrect or half-true content. In such cases, the media may not necessarily be aware of incorrect information being published alongside the true ones. Also, this rating will be given to media reports with false attributions or titles that do not reflect the text in terms of information accuracy.