Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Romania’s constitutional court has cancelled the deciding round of the country’s presidential election scheduled for Sunday after allegations that Russia used TikTok to promote the leading candidate.
The decision to scrap the run-off and annul the first-stage victory of Călin Georgescu, who has praised Vladimir Putin, came after Romanian authorities published documents this week indicating that Moscow had sought to undermine the vote.
But the move was criticised by some politicians and analysts as anti-democratic. Opinion polls had given the far-right Georgescu a comfortable lead over Elena Lasconi, the second-placed liberal presidential candidate, ahead of the now cancelled vote.
“The electoral process for the election of the president of Romania will be repeated in its entirety,” the court said on Friday.
The judges argued that the election process was “flawed throughout” by multiple “irregularities and breaches of electoral law” which “distorted” the vote and its democratic principles.
The date of the new vote will be set by Romania’s government, but only after a new coalition is formed following parliamentary elections last Sunday.
Costin Ciobanu, an analyst at Aarhus University in Denmark, said the annulment “deepens uncertainty and polarisation within Romanian society, raising serious concerns about the strength of Romania’s institutions and democracy”.
Thousands have taken to the streets of Bucharest and other cities to protest against Georgescu in recent days, while a few hundred have held demonstrations backing him.
In a recorded statement on Friday, Georgescu said he would challenge the decision at the country’s supreme court, the High Court of Cassation and Justice. He declared it was “unreal” that nine constitutional judges could overturn the votes of millions of Romanians.
“The Romanian state took democracy and trampled on it,” he said, adding that the court’s decision was “more than a legal controversy”.
“It is, practically, a coup d’état,” he said. Pledging to fight on, he said his only “pact” was with the Romanian people and god.
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis sought in a televised address on Friday evening to reassure investors and western allies, promising to stay in office until a successor is sworn in. “Romania is a stable and secure country,” he said.
Friday’s ruling is the first time a western court has intervened to overturn an election because of an alleged Russian attempt to sway the result. But it comes after a series of bids by Moscow to influence votes in countries well beyond its traditional sphere of influence.
Maia Sandu, president of neighbouring Moldova, narrowly secured re-election last month after what the country’s officials said was an attempt at vote-buying by Moscow-aligned politicians.
The head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has also warned that Russia may try to interfere in his country’s parliamentary election next year.
Georgescu’s rise in recent weeks has stunned Romania and its western allies.
His first-round victory came even though he had no party behind him and claimed to have spent “zero” on his campaign, which was run mainly on social media.
The Romanian National Security Council declassified several documents on Wednesday alleging that Russia attempted to promote Georgescu on social media platforms and hack into the country’s electoral infrastructure.
The documents also noted that the far-right candidate, who was polling in single digits before last month’s vote, “benefited from preferential treatment” on TikTok because the Chinese social media platform did not label his videos as political ads.
Over 100 paid influencers with more than 8mn followers had promoted Georgescu’s videos, according to the documents. TikTok said earlier this week that it had taken down a “cluster” of pro-Georgescu accounts.
Romanian authorities have asked the European Commission to open a probe into TikTok, which could result in fines. The company, which is owned by ByteDance, has denied the accusations and said it acted in compliance with Romanian and EU law.
The court’s decision to annul the vote comes despite it validating a recount on Monday that confirmed Georgescu’s first-round victory, in which he won 23 per cent of the vote.
Friday’s ruling was welcomed as “the only correct decision” by Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, who had led polls before the first round. “The Romanian vote was blatantly undermined following the Russian intervention,” he said.
But Lasconi, who had been expecting to face Georgescu in the run-off that had been scheduled for Sunday, labelled the court’s decision as “illegal, immoral”, adding that the ruling “crushes the essence of democracy — the vote”.
She vowed to stand again and win the presidency.
Prosecutors have started multiple probes following the evidence presented by the intelligence services.
The US state department also warned this week about “foreign actors seeking to shift Romania’s foreign policy away from its western alliances”, which it said would have “serious negative impacts on US security co-operation”.
