Romanian far-right populist Calin Georgescu has lost his appeal against a ruling barring him from participating in May’s presidential election.
The Constitutional court issued the final ruling on Tuesday afternoon after deliberating for two hours.
A large crowd who were gathered outside the court in Bucharest shouted “traitors” and “we are going nowhere”.
The Central Electoral Bureau had earlier rejected Georgescu’s candidacy for a rerun of the presidential election in May.
Georgescu had won the first round of last year’s presidential vote, but it was annulled after intelligence revealed Russia had been involved in setting up 800 TikTok accounts backing him.
On Sunday, the election bureau said Georgescu’s candidacy did not “meet the conditions of legality”, as he “violated the very obligation to defend democracy”.
Georgescu appealed that verdict on Monday.