Romania’s top court annuls presidential election result

Romania’s constitutional court has annulled the first round of the country’s 2024 presidential election process, which was narrowly won by far-right ultranationalist candidate Calin Georgescu amid allegations of Russian interference.

The historic decision means a second-round runoff that was scheduled for Sunday, when Georgescu would have gone head to head with his centrist rival Elena Lasconi, will no longer take place.

In a press release, the court said the annulment was based on Article 146(f) of the Constitution, emphasizing the need to ensure the correctness and legality of the electoral process.

The court’s decision, announced Friday, is final and binding. It requires the Romanian government to restart the electoral calendar.

Friday’s decision caps off a troubled election cycle in the country, with the same court last week ordering a recount of the first-round votes.

It also comes just days after the vote was hit with fears over foreign interference, after declassified documents from Romania’s top security council revealed evidence of “aggressive hybrid Russian attacks.”

They also showed how Georgescu was boosted by potential interference on TikTok – the social media platform on which he largely ran his campaign – through algorithms, coordinated accounts and paid promotion, Reuters reported.

One of the declassified documents, from the Romanian intelligence agency, detailed more than 85,000 attempted cyber-attacks on election websites and IT systems, and concluded that “the attacker has considerable resources specific to an attacking state,” Reuters reported.

These findings prompted the US State Department to express concern and warn that a shift away from the West “would have serious negative impacts on U.S. security cooperation with Romania.”

In comments made Wednesday, ahead of the court’s annulment on Friday, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement: “We are concerned by the Romanian Supreme Council for National Defense (CSAT)’s report of Russian involvement in malign cyber activity designed to influence the integrity of the Romanian electoral process.”

Miller added that the “data referenced in the report should be fully investigated to ensure the integrity of Romania’s electoral process.”

Georgescu, 62, started out his campaign with single-digit support but enjoyed a shock rise to prominence, narrowly emerging as leader in the election’s first round with 22.9% of the vote to Lasconi’s 19.2%.

While he has not described himself as specifically pro-Russian, Georgescu had previously labeled Ukraine as an “invented state” and declared he wants a “strategy” of “peace with everyone, regardless of who they are.”

A Romanian official on Wednesday described Georgescu’s success in the first round as shocking. They told CNN that his victory would be “an extraordinary triumph for… (Russian President Vladimir) Putin” and “would cancel the whole progress that Romania has made in the past 35 years.”

Georgescu centered his campaign on tackling the country’s cost of living crisis, and vowed to end Romania’s support for Ukraine. Romania shares a 400-mile border with its northern neighbor and under its previous presidency helped export millions of tons of grain out of the war-stricken country.

Meanwhile, the center-right Lasconi, of the Save Romania Union (USR) party, ran a campaign pledging to keep Romania on its pro-Western course.

The court’s decision to cancel the election came the day after a large protest in the Romanian capital Bucharest, when hundreds turned out to rally in favor of Lasconi and against the far-right. A small group of counter-protesters also rallied in support of Georgescu on Thursday night.

Protesters held banners reading “Romania, a landmark in the EU and NATO” and “No fascism.”

“I’m here today to protest against this fascist movement that is coming here, to Romania, against this leader that they have, Calin Georgescu, who appeared out of nowhere, clearly sponsored by Putin and by Moscow and we’re fighting against all the things that went wrong during this campaign,” one demonstrator called Mihai told Reuters.

Another protester, a student named Daniel, pointed to “a lot of fraud, suspected fraud at the voting stations” in the first-round vote.

This story has been updated with additional developments.