Russian President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that blocking Georgescu from the election rerun — after the pro-Russian candidate won November’s canceled election — was “a violation of all democratic norms in the center of Europe,” and that elections held without him would be illegitimate.

A top Romanian court on Tuesday rejected an appeal by far-right politician Calin Georgescu to lift a ban on his candidacy for the rerun in May of Romania's presidential election, after the same court annulled last year's election in which Georgescu won the first round.