Romania’s top court annuls presidential vote won by far-right candidate
6 December 2024, 18:54
The move comes after Calin Georgescu’s surprise victory in the first round of the poll, with a run-off due to take place on Sunday.
A top Romanian court has annulled the first round of the country’s presidential election, which was won by the far-right outsider Calin Georgescu.
The move comes days after declassified intelligence alleged Russia ran a coordinated online campaign to promote Mr Georgescu.
The Constitutional Court’s unprecedented decision – which is final – came after President Klaus Iohannis declassified intelligence on Wednesday that alleged Russia ran a sprawling campaign comprising thousands of social media accounts to promote Mr Georgescu across platforms like TikTok and Telegram.
Despite being a huge outsider who declared zero campaign spending, Mr Georgescu emerged as the frontrunner on November 24.
We are concerned about mounting indications of coordinated foreign online influence operation targeting ongoing Romanian elections, especially on TikTok.
The @EU_Commission took action under the #DigitalServicesAct issuing to TikTok.
— Henna Virkkunen (@HennaVirkkunen) December 6, 2024
He was due to face reformist Elena Lasconi of the Save Romania Union party in a run-off on Sunday.
Mr Iohannis said that once a government is formed, dates will be set to rerun the vote from scratch, and that he will remain in office until a new president is elected. Some 951 voting stations had already opened abroad on Friday for the runoff for Romania’s large diaspora but had to be halted.
Sandwiched in the week in between the scheduled presidential race, Romania also held a parliamentary election which saw pro-Western parties win the most votes but also gains for far-right nationalists.
In a televised statement on Friday, Mr Iohannis said he was “deeply concerned” by the contents of the intelligence reports, which indicated one candidate’s campaign was “unlawfully supported from outside Romania” and was a matter of national security.
“The same candidate declared zero campaign expenditures, despite running a highly sophisticated campaign,” he said.
“Intelligence reports revealed that this candidate’s campaign was supported by a foreign state with interests contrary to Romania’s. These are serious issues.”
Earlier, the European Union said it sent TikTok an urgent request for more information about the Romanian intelligence files suggesting that Moscow coordinated influencers on its platform to promote Mr Georgescu.
The 27-nation bloc’s executive branch is using its sweeping digital rulebook to scrutinise the video sharing platform’s role in the election, which ended with the far-right populist Mr Georgescu seemingly coming out of nowhere to take top spot in the first round of voting.
It is unclear from the intelligence release whether Mr Georgescu was aware of the alleged campaign or assisted in it.
European Commission officials said they asked the video sharing platform to comment on the files and to provide information on actions that it is taking in response.
It is the second time the commission has asked TikTok for information since the election’s first round of voting on November 24, and comes a day after it ordered the Chinese-owned platform to retain all election-related files and evidence.
Henna Virkkunen, the commission’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, said in a post on X: “We are concerned about mounting indications of coordinated foreign online influence operation targeting ongoing Romanian elections, especially on TikTok.”
TikTok has 24 hours to respond to the EU request, officials told a press briefing in Brussels.
