European Nation Becomes First Country to Overturn Election Over Foreign Interference
In a globally unprecedented move, Romania’s Constitutional Court overturned the presidential election results after Romania’s intelligence agency alleged foreign interference through social media.
The episode makes Romania the first country to overturn election results due to allegations of foreign meddling through social media, a key flashpoint since allegations began prominently emerging globally after the 2016 U.S. election. In Romania’s case, the court overturned the results after a declassified report from its intelligence agency alleged foreign interference via TikTok.
The report came as Romania’s political establishment tried to figure out how Călin Georgescu, 62, running without a party, came in first in the first round of elections with 22.9% of the vote. His rise blindsided the entire Romanian political scene, especially as he hadn’t participated in any debates, didn’t register significantly in opinion polls, and didn’t belong to a party, something almost unheard of in Romanian politics.
Instead, Georgescu ran an almost exclusively online campaign, centering on TikTok edits of himself. The edits were usually clips of his speeches interwoven with him riding on horseback, swimming in icy mountain waters, or fighting in judo sessions, among other activities. His account quickly went viral, garnering 3.8 million likes and 298,000 followers, while his videos routinely receive millions of views, Politico reported.
Romania has the largest share of per capita TikTok users in Europe, with roughly half of its 19 million population being users of the app, according to data from the World Population Review. (Read more from “European Nation Becomes First Country to Overturn Election Over Foreign Interference” HERE)
