Budapest, Dec 6 (EFE).- Romania’s Constitutional Court on Friday annulled the first round of the presidential election held on Nov. 24, which the pro-Russian Calin Georgescu won, forcing the electoral process to be repeated.
The high court decided “unanimously” to annul “the entire electoral process related to the election of the President of Romania” when the second round between the ultra-nationalist Georgescu and the pro-European Elena Lasconi was ready to be held on Sunday.
“The electoral process for the election of the president of Romania will resume, leaving it to the government to set a new date for the election,” the court added in an unprecedented ruling in the 35 years of democracy in the Balkan country.
The short statement announcing the decision gave no justification for the annulment. The reasons are to be published in the full text in the official bulletin.
This annulment has caused a new upheaval in a country that has been in political turmoil since Georgescu won the first round against all odds with 22.9% of the vote. Meanwhile, voting in the second round has already been opened to Romanians in the diaspora.
The decision comes after several intelligence reports, declassified on Wednesday by the current president, Klaus Iohannis, confirmed that Georgescu’s campaign was driven by a strategy of interference linked to a “state actor,” identified by the Romanian press as Russia.
A network of 25,000 TikTok accounts and Telegram groups, coordinated since 2022, amplified Georgescu’s presence, supported by one million euros in external funding, payments to influencers, and advanced techniques to evade bot detection.
Another report found 85,000 cyber-attacks against Romania attributed to Russia to divide society and promote anti-Western narratives.
Georgescu claimed he had spent nothing on his campaign and that everything was part of an attack on him and his candidacy.
The far-right candidate was not endorsed by any party, gave few interviews or rallies, and focused his campaign on social networks, especially TikTok, where he reached hundreds of millions of views. EFE
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