Romanian court orders rerun of election after alleged pro-Russia campaign on TikTok

Romania’s highest court on Friday annulled the first round of the country’s presidential election, days after allegations that Russia had a coordinated online campaign to promote a foreigner who won the first round.

The Constitutional Court’s unprecedented decision – the final one – came after President Klaus Iohannis released intelligence on Wednesday saying Russia had orchestrated a campaign involving thousands of social media accounts to promote Calin Georgescu on social media platforms such as TikTok and Telegram.

Despite being a big outsider who announced no campaign spending, Georgescu came out on top on November 24.

She was due to face reformist Elena Lasconi of the Save Romania Union party in the next round on Sunday. A new date will now be set to rerun the first round.

But Lasconi strongly criticized the court’s decision, saying it was “illegal, dirty and crushing the core of democracy.”

“We had to go ahead with the vote. We had to respect the will of the Romanian people. Whether we like it or not, from a legal and legal point of view, nine million Romanian citizens, in the country and abroad, expressed their choice of a certain person with their votes. he said.

He said the issue of Russian interference should have been taken up after the election.

The president serves a five-year term and has significant decision-making powers in areas such as national security, foreign policy and judicial appointments. Romania is a member of both the European Union and NATO.

Accounts are activated when votes are made, files suggest

The intelligence files were from the Romanian Intelligence Service, the Foreign Intelligence Service, the Special Telecommunication Service and the Ministry of the Interior.

The same court last week ordered a recount of the first round of votes, adding to the many controversies that have engulfed the election cycle.

Declassified files suggest that the pro-Russia campaign used the Telegram messaging app to recruit thousands of TikTok users to promote Georgescu. Romanian intelligence services say that one TikTok user paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to influencers on the platform to promote content about the candidate.

Some of the thousands of social media accounts used in the campaign are said to have been created years ago but were only active in the weeks leading up to the first round vote, the files showed.

It is not clear from the intelligence service whether Georgescu was aware of the campaign that he is said to have carried out, let alone whether he helped in it.

The EU wants to hear from TikTok

The European Union said on Friday it had sent TikTok an urgent request for more information. The commission previously asked the Chinese-owned platform to preserve all files and evidence related to the Romanian election.

“We are concerned about the increasing number of indications of foreign influence on the internet targeting the ongoing elections in Romania, especially on TikTok,” said Henna Virkkunen, vice president of the European Commission for technology sovereignty, security and democracy, in the X post.

TikTok has 24 hours to respond to the EU’s request, officials told a press conference in Brussels.

Cristian Andrei, a Bucharest-based political consultant, said the court’s decision was “a critical situation for Romanian democracy.”

“Because of the information about foreign interference, massive interference in elections, I think this was not normal but it was predictable, because these are not normal times at all. Romania is an unprecedented place,” he told the Associated Press. “The problem is, do we have the institutions to control this kind of interference in the future?”

EU lawmakers last week called for a repeat parliamentary vote in Georgia’s October election within a year, which would be run by independent administrators and conducted under international supervision.

The president of Georgia, who has a major role in the celebrations, accused the ruling party Georgia Dream of rigging the election with the help of Russia, which ruled Georgia from Moscow when it was part of the Soviet Union.