BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — He shook Romania’s political landscape in November when he secured the first round in the presidential election, going from an obscure candidate to beating the incumbent prime minister.

Calin Georgescu, a little-known, far-right populist, clinched the most votes and advanced to the second round to face off against reformist Elena Lasconi of the progressive Save Romania Union party.

The surprising outcome left many political observers wondering how most local surveys were off, putting Georgescu behind at least five other candidates. A top court then made the unprecedented move to annul the election after allegations emerged of electoral violations and Russian interference.

On Wednesday, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against Georgescu, accusing him of election campaign funding abuses, supporting fascist groups and other offenses. The new elections have been rescheduled for May, and it isn't clear if Georgescu can participate in the vote.

Born in Bucharest in 1962, Georgescu holds a doctorate in pedology, a branch of soil science, and held different positions in Romania’s environment ministry in the 1990s, according to his website. Between 1999 and 2012, he was a representative for Romania on the national committee of the United Nations Environment Program.

Once a member of Romania’s far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, or AUR, Georgescu left the party in 2022 after a period of infighting. He was accused by colleagues of being pro-Russian and critical of NATO, the U.S.-led military alliance to which Romania belongs.

He supports the Romanian Orthodox Church and has sparked controversy in the past for describing Romanian fascist and nationalist leaders from the 1930s and 1940s as national heroes.

He has also praised Russian President Vladimir Putin in the past as “a man who loves his country” and called Ukraine “an invented state,” but he claims not to be pro-Russian. He is married with three sons.

Many observers attributed Georgescu’s success to his TikTok account, which has 4.3 million likes and 679,000 followers. He gained huge traction and popularity in the weeks leading up to the first election round.

According to a report by Expert Forum, a Bucharest-based think tank, Georgescu’s TikTok account has had an explosion which it said appeared "sudden and artificial, similar to his polling results.”

On Nov. 18, his TikTok account garnered 92.8 million views primarily within the last two months, the report states, a figure that grew by 52 million views a week later, just days before the first-round vote.

“The most visible theme pushed by Calin Georgescu on TikTok in the last two months is peace, more precisely the need for Romania to stop supporting Ukraine in order not to involve Romania in war,” the report stated.

After his first-round victory, another TikTok account solely featuring Geogescu content, which had 1.7 million likes, appeared to have been deleted. It had posts with Georgescu attending church, doing judo, running around an oval track, and speaking on podcasts.

Cristian Andrei, a political consultant based in Bucharest, said after Georgescu’s unexpected poll performance that it had less to do with his appeal and more to do with voters growing tired of an out-of-touch political class.

“He’s just a guy who managed to use the social networks to make himself visible in a void for many Romanians who lost contact with political parties, at least with the elites in Bucharest,” he said. “The mainstream political parties have lost the ability to use these new platforms.”

He added that politicians from Romania’s traditional parties had lacked messages of hope and no clear vision for their country ahead of the vote.

His positions include supporting Romanian farmers, reducing import dependence, and ramping up local energy and food production. He also wants to establish a “sovereign” distribution model allegedly based on participatory democracy in which “Truth, Freedom and Sovereignty are the axes of values” in Romania’s development.

On foreign policy, he has cast skepticism on both NATO and the European Union, to which Romania belongs.

In an interview with The Associated Press in December, Geogrescu said Romania’s Western alliances remain secure, providing they “serve the sovereignty of the country and nothing else.”

He is also a self-professed Donald Trump supporter, saying the U.S. president “knows what he wants, he loves his people, he put America first, just like I put Romania first ... we have the same ideology.”