TikTok, polling, and the election that wasn’t.
Romania was due to elect a new president this past weekend. They didn’t.
Romania has a parliamentary government, with an elected president as head of state. An unusual element of Romania’s system is that the president may not, during his or her term, be a member of a political party. But this theoretical neutrality doesn’t mean those elected are not usually politicians. (The incumbent, Klaus Iohannis, was leader of the National Liberal Party [PNL], before his election.)
The post-Ceaușescu constitution was designed to limit the power of the president versus the legislature, but as head of state the president is a member of the European Council and still has a very influential role. The president is also restricted to two consecutive terms (also an attempt to avoid the “president for life” situation that existed under communism).
As planned, the first round of voting took place on November 24, narrowing the field to two candidates. The upset was who came out ahead.
Unaffiliated candidate Călin Georgescu ran up the numbers, to the shock of political observers across Europe. Although an independent since 2022, he was in the past a member of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), a right-wing nationalist party, which has gained support in recent years. One of their strengths has been gaining attention on the Internet, and support among the Romanian diaspora voting from abroad.
He’s also not exactly a fringe figure, having served as the Executive Director of the United Nations Global Sustainable Index Institute in Geneva and Vaduz from 2015 to 2016. Prior to that, he was President of the European Research Centre for the Club of Rome (2013–2015). But he was seen very much as an outsider in this race, and an avatar for anti-NATO, pro-Putin, Romanian identitarianism.
Second place (and the remaining spot on the ballot for the second round) went to Elena Lasconi. She was president of the party USR (Save Romania Union), a right-to-center-right, socially liberal party. This meant Romanian voters were going to be choosing between two right-wing candidates for their president: a first in the country’s post-communism history.
Polling prior to the first round had Georgescu only achieving a small percentage of the vote, so this added to the surprise (though perhaps less so to those of us becoming accustomed to opinion polls undercounting support for right-wing candidates). Georgescu gained much of his support through TikTok, which is where the story takes another turn.
Just 48 hours before the final round was due to take place, the election was called off.
The constitutional court annulled the first round, due to allegations of electoral interference.
President Klaus Iohannis declassified intelligence documents from the supreme council for national defense, alleging that nearly 800 TikTok accounts created in 2016 were suddenly activated in November, supporting Georgescu’s campaign. Romanian intelligence accused Russia of creating these accounts.
Another 25,000 TikTok accounts had become active only two weeks before the first round of the election.
Further allegations include failing to mark his campaign’s TikToks as election material, and illegal payments to users promoting him. One account paid out $381,000 in the space of a month to users who boosted Georgescu’s candidacy.
The court’s judgment says the vote is to be entirely annulled, and the government must make plans for a new election. President Iohannis says he will remain in office until that time.
Allegations of foreign interference in elections, particularly via social media, have been made around the world over the last decade. This is the first time a country has pulled the plug on their vote because of it. It may not be the last.
