A Romanian far-right leader is being investigated for election fraud, days before the country heads to the polls for EU and local elections.
According to a statement from prosecutors seen by local media, George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for Uniting Romanians (AUR), asked his staff “to falsify several thousand lists of supporters” to allow a candidate to run in the European Parliament election.
The statement did not name Simion, but he released his own statement confirming he was the subject of the investigation and calling it politically motivated.
“I expected [Romanian Prime Minister Marcel] Ciolacu to make a move this week, to try to manipulate public opinion to get AUR out of the electoral competition,” he wrote on his website.
“You will not intimidate us, you will not stop us! As long as we have the Romanians on our side, nothing can bring us down!” he said, adding that if his political opponents wanted him in “handcuffs” they would have to win at the polls on Sunday.
Simion’s AUR party is polling at 17 percent and predicted to come second in Sunday’s EU election behind the left-wing Social Democratic Party and centre-right National Liberal Party, who have formed a coalition.
Simion has been involved in numerous political controversies, and in 2018 was banned from entering Moldova — which his party favors unifying with Romania — for five years.
The post Romanian far-right leader investigated for EU election fraud appeared first on Politico.
