Romania in chaos: Constitutional Court considers annulment of vote due to Russian interference

Romania sinks into political and electoral chaos. In view of the run-off for the presidential election scheduled for 8 December, the crisis has deepened. The victory in the first round, on 24 November, obtained by Călin Georgescu, a nationalist and pro-Russian candidate, may have been conditioned by external interference. Hence the Constitutional Court's decision to postpone the decision on the possible annulment of the first round until Monday 2 December. And thus the annulment of the runoff scheduled for 8 December.

An unexpected shock and harbinger of uncertainty for a country that is part of the European Union and NATO, faces the Black Sea like Ukraine and Russia. And it hosts an American anti-missile system and a NATO contingent on its territory.

It is the spectre of interference through TikTok that conjures up the ghost of Cambridge Analytica. The TikTok platform may have been used illicitly. And this would explain the unexpected victory of Georgescu who, according to the polls, would have obtained 5% of the vote, but instead took 22.3% thanks to a campaign based on viral videos on TikTok (which has 8 million users in Romania). In second place was the centre-right candidate Elena Lasconi; the third runner-up, excluded from the ballot, is the social-democratic Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu.

Let us review the steps. The far-right independent candidate, Calin Georgescu, won last Sunday's vote, securing a place in the runoff scheduled for 8 December. Victory in the second round would upset Romanian politics and could undermine his pro-Western posture. The Romanian authorities say they have evidence of interference in the campaign by 'hostile actors' and the Constitutional Court reserves the right to validate the results.The Court has ordered a recount of the 9.46 million votes cast in the first round and is considering a request by a defeated conservative candidate to annul the first round vote. The uncertainty has caused chaos in the country of 19 million inhabitants.

The head of the Electoral Commission Toni Grebla told Radio Romania Actualitati that the first round will be repeated if the Constitutional Court decides to annul the result, adding: "We hope that 'this recount will end as soon as possible'. If there is no validation, the first round of the presidential elections could take place on 15 December and the runoff on 29 December. According to Romanian law, the court can only annul the result of the first round if it finds evidence of fraud such that it cannot confirm the entry of one or both candidates into the run-off.Romania's Supreme Defence Council said it had evidence of interference.