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 co-ordinated 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 front-runner on November 24th.
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He was due to face reformist Elena Lasconi of the Save Romania Union party in a run-off on Sunday.
Earlier, the European Union said it sent TikTok an urgent request for more information about the Romanian intelligence files suggesting that Moscow co-ordinated influencers on its platform to promote Mr Georgescu.
The 27-nation bloc’s executive branch is using its sweeping digital rule book 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 24th, 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 co-ordinated 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. – AP
