The AEP notification that could change the outcome of the elections

At the end of last week, a press "bombshell" appeared, according to which President Nicuşor Dan would have a criminal case pending before the Prosecutor General's Office regarding the financing of his campaign in the presidential elections of May 2025. According to Adrian Ţuţuianu, the current president of the Permanent Electoral Authority, the public institution would have notified the Prosecutor General's Office regarding Nicuşor Dan in April 2025, in the midst of the electoral campaign for the presidential elections, when the position of president was exercised by Zsombor Vajda, after the dismissal of Toni Greblă from the position of AEP president by Parliament.

"The AEP's complaint to the Prosecutor's Office was made in April 2025, but the country's president has immunity for the duration of his mandate," Ţuţuianu declared, also specifying that the document recently signed by him, without date, which appeared in the press, represents only a response to a request for information of public interest.

However, we point out that President Nicuşor Dan contested the AEP's refusal to fully reimburse his campaign expenses, and the institution "rejected his prior complaint" in December 2025, the file being resolved in court, as Adrian Ţuţuianu specified.

But what is this about? Following the control regarding the financing of the campaign for the election of the President of Romania in 2025, the AEP team "verified all documents relating to the income received and the expenses incurred by the independent candidate Nicuşor-Daniel Dan" and concluded that "payments were made related to electoral expenses for which the reality and accuracy of the service provided cannot be proven (for example, sociological research conducted outside the electoral campaign was requested for reimbursement; electoral propaganda materials produced by companies that were not in contractual relations with the independent candidate according to the documents submitted to the AEP were disseminated), in a total amount of 870,384.10 lei, without complying with the legal provisions", the conclusions of the report drawn up by the public institution show, which states that "this led to the invalidation of the amount of 870,384.10 lei".

"Following the emergence of suspicions regarding the commission of criminal acts, the Permanent Electoral Authority notified the Prosecutor's Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice," it is mentioned in the response sent by the president of the AEP, Adrian Ţuţuianu, to the media request.

• The notification from April 2025, the fuse necessary for AUR to request the suspension of Nicuşor Dan

Regarding the conclusions of the AEP report, Nicuşor Dan publicly declared, on December 12, 2025, that he would take the public institution to court because it had paid him 930,000 lei less than the amount borrowed for the campaign. According to his own figures, "in broad terms, I spent 61 million lei in the two rounds, of which 58 and a half million were borrowed and two and a half million were donated (...). AEP returned 60 million to me, approximately one million lei less". After repaying the loans, Nicuşor Dan said that "I still have one and a half million left", and for the remaining one million, which AEP did not return to him, he will sue the institution: "We will contest this, there will be a trial and this trial will probably last, as the courts of law know, about two years".

However, the official report shows that 57.3 million lei were spent in loans and 3.6 million lei in donations in the campaign, which already raises a difference in presentation between the publicly rounded figures and those recorded in writing.

What is striking in this case is the moment when the complaint was filed, April 2025, that is, right in the middle of the presidential campaign. According to official information, at that time the Authority was led on an interim basis by Zsombor Vajda, vice-president of the AEP since 2018 and president of the AEP from February 28, 2025 (after Toni Greblă was dismissed by Parliament from that position) until December 16, 2025, when the position was taken over by Adrian Ţuţuianu.

Therefore, it was not the current president of the institution who triggered the mechanism, but the interim leadership. And the political context is impossible to ignore: UDMR, the parliamentary group that proposed Zsombor Vajda to the AEP, supported Crin Antonescu in the first round of the presidential elections in May 2025, along with PSD and PNL. After he failed to enter the second round, the leaders of the Union crossed over with weapons and baggage to Nicuşor Dan's camp, and at the end of the presidential elections they publicly claimed the decisive role of the vote of the Hungarians from Harghita, Covasna, Mureş, Cluj-Napoca, Bihor and Satu Mare in the election of Nicuşor Dan.

Under these conditions, we can ask ourselves whether the notification formulated in April 2025, in the midst of the presidential competition, was a simple administrative act or a gesture with the potential for major electoral impact. This is all the more so since, after the information regarding the criminal file from the Prosecutor General's Office emerged last Friday, the vice president of the AUR, Adrian Axinia, reacted immediately, stating that Nicuşor Dan is an illegitimate president of Romania, adding that "the criminal file that arises following the notification of the AEP makes him instantly blackmailable, constantly having the specter of prison after the end of his mandate". Furthermore, the vice president of the AUR requested the suspension of Nicuşor Dan from office and the organization of a referendum on his dismissal, even suggesting the hypothesis of "blackmail" related to the appointments that the current president must soon make at the top of the Prosecutor's Offices, SRI and SIE.

• Former head of the Legal Department of CNADNR, beneficiary of an 11 million euro public contract

But who is Zsombor Vajda, the former president of the AEP who notified the Prosecutor's Office? According to his CV, Zsombor Vajda was born on April 26, 1980, was vice-president of the Permanent Electoral Authority from April 13, 2018 to February 28, 2025, when he became president of that institution. Mr. Vajda has a consistent professional background in the legal and administrative area: former general manager and administrator of the company Kamarom Prefabricate din Beton SRL between May 2015 and April 2018, director of the cabinet of a state secretary at the Ministry of Transport between April 2014 and January 2015, during which time he also held the position of legal advisor at the Concessions Directorate (March 2013-May 2015) within the National Company for Motorways and National Roads (CNADNR), after previously having been, between February 2012 and March 2013, legal advisor at the service dealing with the resolution of disputes within the same national company.

We note that Vajda also had experience as a legal advisor for six months, in 2011, at the Contentious Service of CNADNR, after previously, between May 2008 and May 2011, he was twice deputy general manager of the Legal Department of that national company and once full general manager.

Why do we refer to all these positions held by Zsombor Vajda within CNADNR? Because, in May 2015, he became general manager and administrator of the private company Kamarom Prefabricate din Beton SRL, and in the second half of that year, the National Company for Motorways and National Roads organized a public tender procedure for a framework agreement on the supply, transport and installation of rigid prefabricated concrete parapets on four-lane road sections and in dangerous areas.

The contract, signed on 22 April 2016, had a total value of 51,808,593.45 lei excluding VAT, i.e. over 11 million euros, and was awarded to the Kamarom Prefabricate din Beton SRL (a company run by Zsombor Vajda) - Dunapref SA association, represented by Kamarom as the leader of the association. The subject of the contract was "the supply, transport and installation of rigid prefabricated concrete parapets used on dangerous sections of national roads (...) to protect vehicles from entering the other direction of traffic, exits from the road platform, intersection arrangements, including the replacement of damaged ones”.

The chronological sequence of events - Zsombor Vajda's departure from CNADNR in April 2015 and his taking over the management of a company that, a few months later, entered a tender organized by the same company and won it in April 2016 - is recorded in the CV of the former AEP president and in documents from the national company subordinate to the Ministry of Transport. Even if there is no official finding of illegality in the analyzed materials, the question regarding potential conflicts of interest or informational advantages held by Zsombor Vajda regarding the respective tender is a legitimate one, which the National Integrity Agency should have answered by now, following an ex officio notification.

We also point out that Zsombor Vajda's CV mentions studies at the "Dimitrie Cantemir" Christian University (2004-2008), advanced training courses at the ECHR, qualifications as a project manager and expert in public-private partnership, as well as the status of an authorized Hungarian translator. However, one detail draws attention: in the chapter on personal skills, five languages are listed - Romanian (mother tongue), English "very good", Hungarian "very good", Chinese "good" and Spanish "good". However, the document does not mention university or postgraduate courses in Chinese, language certifications, internships, professional trips or attachments to China that would formally support this competence. In the absence of such academic or professional references, the level and manner in which the former president of the AEP acquired Chinese language competence is suspect, but perhaps we are talking about a self-taught person.

Returning to politics, the picture of the scandal triggered last Friday becomes complex: the criminal complaint against the candidate Nicuşor Dan was formulated in April 2025 by the interim leadership of the AEP, at a time when the presidential competition was in full swing; in the first round, the UDMR supported another candidate; after the second round, the representatives of the Union decisively claimed the Hungarian vote in the election of the new president.

In parallel, the AEP invalidated expenses of 870,384.10 lei and notified the Prosecutor General's Office for "suspicions regarding the commission of criminal acts", while President Nicuşor Dan contested in court, at the end of last year, the difference of approximately one million lei not recovered.

The facts are documented, the figures are public, the statements are explicit, but an ambiguity remains. Was the notification of April 2025 an inevitable technical act resulting from financial control or a move with the potential to influence the presidential elections in favor of Crin Antonescu?