The Romanian Constitutional Court has annulled the results of the first round of the presidential elections.
Candidates will have to re-register and undergo verification by the CEC.
Let us recall that in the first round the far-right politician Kelin Georgescu won. The day before, the intelligence services published documents stating that bots in Tok-Tok could have been campaigning in his favor. Law enforcement officials believe that this is related to Russian activities.
Now the elections will have to start from scratch, writes Digi24.
The judges unanimously supported the annulment of the results. The decision is final and not subject to appeal.
The electoral process will begin with the registration and approval of candidates.
The judges made the decision after urgent consultations amid a flurry of new requests to overturn the results of the presidential election. The requests referred to documents declassified by the country’s Supreme Defense Council, the material says.
Ahead of this, the Supreme Defense Council declassified documents related to the election campaign of the winner of the first round, far-right candidate Kelin Georgescu. According to the documents, Romania was the target of “aggressive Russian hybrid actions,” in particular on the day and night of the November 24 elections.
In addition, the Romanian intelligence service reported that it had received information about the “exploitation of algorithms of some social media platforms to accelerate the growth of Georgescu’s popularity.”
Previously, the European Commission ordered TikTok to preserve data related to the Romanian presidential election after declassifying information about Russian interference. They noted that this order also applies to data from other upcoming elections in the EU.
Georgescu unexpectedly won the first round of elections on November 24. On the eve of the vote, he took 4th-5th place in polls by sociologists.
TikTok alerted Romanian authorities to a network of accounts linked to Russian state media outlet Sputnik, targeting users in Romania and Moldova. Social media algorithms were used to manipulate public opinion two weeks before the vote, and this dramatically increased Georgescu’s popularity.
The National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting said that TikTok had a significant influence on the presidential election. The election campaign here was based on “coordinating accounts that actively disseminated propaganda without proper labels.” It is also suspected that Georgescu’s huge support on TikTok is a sign of foreign interference.
Between the first and second rounds, far-right Romanian presidential candidate Georgescu said that if he wins, he will ban the transit of Ukrainian grain and stop military aid to Ukraine.
He noted that for him, the Romanian people come first, so he cannot imagine that there would be a war next to Romania, in the middle of Europe.
Georgescu also questioned the effectiveness of funding from EU funds, which is aimed at the economy and development of Romania.
Did European funds help us? Are we dependent on European funds? Can’t our country produce? Don’t we have other investors? Money is everywhere in this world, I tell you,” he said.
At the beginning of the week immediately after the parliamentary elections on December 1, the Constitutional Court of Romania recognized as valid the results of the first round of presidential elections, in which far-right politician Kelin Georgescu and pro-European candidate Elena Lasconi qualified.
Pro-European parties in Romania agreed on a coalition after the parliamentary elections.
Today we agreed to form a future coalition that will ensure the stability of the government and implement concrete measures to modernize Romania for the benefit of all citizens, the resolution says.
The parties also confirmed the continuation of Romania’s European and Euro-Atlantic path.
Source: Racurs
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