Romanian court annuls presidential vote after claims of Russian interference

BUCHAREST, Romania - The Constitutional Court took the extraordinary step of annulling Romania’s presidential election Friday after the country’s security services assessed that the nation had been the target of “Russian hybrid actions” that used TikTok to promote a candidate who has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The ruling rippled across Europe, where the continent’s leaders have been closely watching the highly charged race to determine the future of a strategically important NATO member.

“We all have to be aware that Russia is trying to interfere with our elections,” said Siegfried Muresan, a member of the European Parliament from the center-right National Liberal Party. “Their interference has accelerated over recent months, and Romania’s election was a test for the resilience of the whole European Union.”

In a binding decision, the Romanian court canceled Sunday’s runoff and invalidated a Nov. 24 first round that saw Calin Georgescu, a 62-year-old agricultural scientist, stage a meteoric rise to clinch first place.

Georgescu campaigned with no political party and declared no advertising budget, but, propelled by viral content on TikTok, he went from 1 percent support in polls a month ago to winning 22.9 percent.

Romania’s security services pointed to Russian interference to explain his sudden success. Documents declassified Wednesday concluded that a Russian-backed operation helped manipulate TikTok algorithms to boost Georgescu’s popularity.

TikTok executives grilled this week in the European Parliament said the Chinese company had identified and removed 66,000 suspicious accounts and blocked 260,000 spam posts related to the Romanian elections. On Thursday, E.U. regulators also ordered TikTok to “freeze and preserve data” related to Romania’s presidential election.

The Romanian court did not explain the reasoning behind its ruling but cited a constitutional provision giving it authority to “ensure compliance with the procedure for the election of the President of Romania and confirm the results of the vote.”

The government will now need to start the process over, holding a new election at an unspecified date.

On Friday, Romania’s Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism also announced a criminal investigation into Georgescu’s campaign for computer-related crimes.

The court’s decision prompted reactions from praise and relief to outrage.

Both Georgescu and his opponent asserted that “the Romanian state has trampled on democracy.”

“I strongly condemn what they did today; they destroyed 35 years of democracy,” said Elena Lasconi, a pro-Western former broadcast journalist and mayor who was set to compete against Georgescu on Sunday.

The court decision “is practically an official coup d’état. The state is in an induced coma,” Georgescu said in a video message recorded Friday evening.

Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, who placed third in the first round and did not land a spot in the runoff, praised the decision: “The CCR’s decision to cancel the presidential elections is the only correct solution after the declassification of documents from the CSAT meeting showing that the result of the Romanian vote was flagrantly distorted, following Russian intervention. The presidential elections must be restarted.”

“SHAME!!! A coup d’état in full swing! We will not take to the streets, we will not let ourselves be provoked, this system must fall democratically!” George Simion, a far-right politician who backed Georgescu, posted on Facebook.

Ahead of the court’s move, the contest had unsettled officials in Washington and European capitals who saw Romania as the latest battleground of hybrid warfare between Russia and the West.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted Thursday: “Romanian authorities are uncovering a Russian effort - large in scale and well-funded.”

The U.S. State Department warned in a statement that while Romanians are free to elect their leaders, a decision to disengage from the transatlantic community “would have serious negative impacts on U.S. security cooperation with Romania,” and that restricting foreign investment “would discourage U.S. companies from continuing to invest in Romania.”

Separately from the events in Romania, a Washington appeals court on Friday upheld a new law that could lead to a TikTok ban.

Romania has been a member of the E.U. since 2007 and a reliable supporter of its neighbor Ukraine. It has supplied a patriot air-defense battery to Kyiv and serves as a major transit point for grain shipments - defense and economic lifelines Georgescu has vowed to block.

Georgescu appeared to appeal to Romanians tired of the war, who are frustrated with high costs of living and, like many voters in the West this year, eager to punish traditional political elites.

“People have grown so disillusioned with the performance of the political class that they are willing to set the house on fire to the sake of change,” said Oana Popescu-Zamfir, director of GlobalFocus Center, a Romania-based think tank. “They see it as a kind of creative destruction, and they are willing to take whatever risk that entails.”

Georgescu has portrayed himself as antiestablishment - though he has held positions in the Environment Ministry and worked on Romania’s sustainable development policy. He has embraced conspiracy theories, questioned the chemical makeup of water, denied that men ever landed on the moon and expressed skepticism about the coronavirus, saying that “the only science that exists in this world is Jesus Christ.”

His forgiving tone on Russia outraged many in Romania, which harbors bitter memories of Cold War-era interference by the Kremlin, and whose last pro-Russian leader, dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, was executed by a firing squad in 1989.

Fearing a shift away from the West, thousands of protesters braved freezing temperatures Thursday to protest Russian interference, chanting, “Down with fascism,” and “Here is Europe,” while waving E.U. and Romanian flags.

The demonstrators and the country’s pro-European political establishment had thrown their support behind Lasconi, 52, who has been aiming to become Romania’s first female president while warning about the perils of turning away from the West.

Analysts said she underperformed in a televised debate, displaying a lack of knowledge on foreign affairs, defense and security issues. But she sought to bring a message of unity, positivity and grounding to the race, even as her opponent promoted deep-state theories and division over refugees while cultivating the religious vote.

“You could call it a replay of the American elections,” Popescu-Zamfir said.

Lasconi has called Russia the biggest threat to Romania’s national security, saying that Putin must be stopped.

“Russia is playing with people’s minds,” she said in a televised debate Thursday. “It is a hybrid war.”

By contrast, Georgescu in 2021 described Putin as a “master” who “loves his country,” while saying the situation in Ukraine was being “manipulated” into a conflict to “financially help the U.S. military-industrial complex.”

He toned down his rhetoric during the campaign, pledging not to pull the country out of the E.U. or NATO. He also borrowed talking points from one of his professed political role models: President-elect Donald Trump. He vowed to put Romania “first,” stoked fears over Europe’s decline, and said he would end the war in Ukraine by getting “personally involved.” He enlisted conservative Orthodox priests and monks into his online army of backers.

On Wednesday, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis declassified documents from the country’s intelligence services assessing that Georgescu’s meteoric rise - based in part on millions of views on TikTok and other social media platforms - was aided by “aggressive hybrid Russian actions.”

The documents indicated that 25,000 TikTok accounts had become “very active” in the two weeks before the first-round vote in what appeared to be a concerted effort to make content favoring Georgescu more popular. Some influencers were paid in violation of election laws, the documents said. Romania also sustained 85,000 cyberattacks.

The court’s decision Friday came after annulment requests from Romania’s National School of Political and Administrative Studies, the National Institute for the Study of Totalitarianism, and Cristian Terhes, a candidate in the first round. The Prosecutor General’s Office also requested more information on the documents, as well as an analysis from the constitutional court.

A study published in Europe on Thursday by Reset Tech, a nonprofit research and policy group, examined more than 100 TikTok accounts it said showed clear signs of coordination, including near-simultaneous posts and the use of Georgescu’s name or picture in each account name or biography line.

Valeriu Pasha, program manager of WatchDog community, a Moldova-based group monitoring Russian interference, said his organization had tied the TikTok operation to a group of 600 Romanian-speaking Moldovans who had been hired to work at a location on the outskirts of Moscow. He called the operation similar to the one deployed in Moldova’s elections last month, when the pro-Western president nevertheless secured a new term.

“Activists were receiving instructions on what to spread on TikTok: ‘You should upload this video, you should watch this video to boost it on the algorithm,’” Pasha said.

In a statement, TikTok said it had boosted efforts to address influence operations in the Romanian elections and that it had removed more than 115,000 fake accounts, 7 million fake likes, 11 million fake followers and 1,100 accounts impersonating presidential candidates.

Power is diffuse under Romania’s political system, but the president wields significant influence, naming judges and the heads of the intelligence agencies. The president also acts as commander in chief of the military and fills Romania’s seat on the European Council, the E.U.’s body that shapes the bloc’s agenda.

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Faiola reported from Rome. Joseph Menn in San Francisco contributed to this report.