Romania's highest court on Thursday rejected as unfounded a request to annul the presidential election by an ultranationalist candidate who lost convincingly to his pro-European Union opponent on Sunday.
After deliberations, Romania's Constitutional Court unanimously rejected the annulment request, filed on Tuesday by George Simion, in which he alleged that foreign interference and coordinated manipulation influenced the election result.
The court has said its decision is final, the AP reports.
Simion, the 38-year-old leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, had admitted defeat after losing the presidential runoff to Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan, who secured 53.6 percent of the vote, or over 829,000 votes more than his opponent.
After the court announced the decision, Simion said, in a post on the social network Facebook, that the Constitutional Court "continued the coup!"
“We have no choice but to fight!” he said. “I call on you to stand by me, today and in the coming weeks!” Simion wrote.
Sunday's vote was held several months after the same court declared invalid the previous election, in which inexperienced far-right candidate Calin Georgescu led in the first round, following allegations of electoral violations and Russian interference, which Moscow has denied.
In his request to annul the election, Simion claimed that he had “irrefutable evidence” that France, Moldova and “other actors” had interfered in the election, but he failed to present it. He also claimed that “dead people” had participated in the vote, asking for the election to be annulled on the same basis as last year’s court ruling.
Simion exploited the anger over the annulment of last year's elections and, after coming fourth in the annulled vote, teamed up with Georgescu, who was barred from participating in the repeat election in March.
In the first round of the repeat presidential elections, on May 4, Simion won convincingly against 11 other candidates, to secure a runoff.
Hours after voting opened for Romanians abroad on Friday, Simion accused the government of neighboring Moldova of electoral fraud, which Moldovan and Romanian authorities have denied.
He claims that people were illegally transported to polling stations in Moldova, affecting 80,000 votes.
More than half of Moldovans have Romanian citizenship, and around 158,000 people voted at open polling stations in Moldova for the runoff./ REL (A2 Televizion)
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