Romania Presidential Election Annulled Over Russian Interference

Roma­ni­a’s Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court annulled the first round of the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion due to exten­sive Russ­ian inter­fer­ence. On 9 Decem­ber 2025, the Insti­tute of Inter­na­tion­al and Euro­pean Affairs report­ed that Roma­ni­a’s court annulled the Novem­ber 2024 results after inves­ti­ga­tions uncov­ered over 85,000 cyber­at­tacks against Roman­ian elec­toral infra­struc­ture and mas­sive Tik­Tok manip­u­la­tion. The arti­cle begins:

Roma­ni­a’s most recent pres­i­den­tial elec­tion marked the most severe elec­toral dis­rup­tion in the coun­try’s post-com­mu­nist his­to­ry. The cri­sis, caused by large-scale for­eign inter­fer­ence, AI-dri­ven dis­in­for­ma­tion, and deep domes­tic polar­i­sa­tion, cul­mi­nat­ed in the annul­ment of the Novem­ber 2024 first-round vote and the organ­i­sa­tion of a new elec­tion in May 2025. The even­tu­al vic­to­ry of Nicușor Dan, a pro-Euro­pean inde­pen­dent reformer, restored a mea­sure of demo­c­ra­t­ic legit­i­ma­cy but also exposed endur­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties in Roma­ni­a’s polit­i­cal system.

Read more: https://www.iiea.com/blog/romanias-20242025-presidential-election-crisis-and-its-aftermath

Key Points

• Novem­ber 2024 first round won by Călin Georges­cu, fringe ultra­na­tion­al­ist anti-EU pro-Moscow can­di­date with approx­i­mate­ly 23 per­cent despite polling under 5 per­cent days ear­li­er, with a cam­paign dri­ven by mas­sive viral activ­i­ty, includ­ing around 150 mil­lion Tik­Tok views in two months.
• Roman­ian state secu­ri­ty coun­cil inves­ti­ga­tions uncov­ered exten­sive cyber­at­tacks, includ­ing over 85,000 attacks against elec­toral IT infra­struc­ture, with coor­di­nat­ed ampli­fi­ca­tion through AI-gen­er­at­ed con­tent, bot net­works, troll farms, Telegram chan­nels, and stolen elec­tion-serv­er cre­den­tials found on Russ­ian forums.
• Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court annulled first-round results on 6 Decem­ber 2024, cit­ing over­whelm­ing evi­dence that the elec­tion’s integri­ty was com­pro­mised, deter­min­ing the scale and sophis­ti­ca­tion of manip­u­la­tion, includ­ing unre­port­ed dig­i­tal cam­paign­ing and for­eign-spon­sored dis­in­for­ma­tion, made val­i­dat­ing the vote impos­si­ble in an unprece­dent­ed act.
• Rerun elec­tion held May 2025 won by pro-Euro­pean inde­pen­dent Nicușor Dan with 53.6 per­cent in runoff against ultra­na­tion­al­ist George Simion who cap­tured 41 per­cent in first round, demon­strat­ing depth of pop­u­lar dis­con­tent root­ed in cor­rup­tion fatigue, infla­tion, and dis­trust of elites.

Russian Influence Operations in Romania: Kremlin Election Interference and Strategic Defeat

Roma­nia has emerged as a pri­ma­ry tar­get for Russ­ian influ­ence oper­a­tions, though the Krem­lin’s cam­paign ulti­mate­ly suf­fered a strate­gic defeat when pro-Euro­pean forces pre­vailed in the May 2025 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. Roma­ni­a’s Gen­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor con­firmed in Sep­tem­ber 2025 that the 2024 elec­tion was influ­enced by large-scale Russ­ian hybrid war­fare involv­ing cyber activ­i­ty, AI-gen­er­at­ed dis­in­for­ma­tion, and coor­di­nat­ed online manip­u­la­tion through bots and troll farms. Roman­ian intel­li­gence ser­vices uncov­ered a mas­sive Tik­Tok-based inter­fer­ence cam­paign that pro­pelled pre­vi­ous­ly unknown far-right can­di­date Călin Georges­cu to a first-round vic­to­ry. The oper­a­tion involved $381,000 in undis­closed pay­ments and 85,000 attempt­ed hacks tar­get­ing elec­toral sys­tems, prompt­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court to take the unprece­dent­ed step of annulling the results.

Russ­ian influ­ence extends through coor­di­nat­ed Telegram chan­nel net­works spread­ing Krem­lin pro­pa­gan­da. Research by Open­Minds doc­u­ment­ed 48 Roman­ian-lan­guage Telegram chan­nels con­sis­tent­ly dis­sem­i­nat­ing pro-Russ­ian con­tent, with over 4,000 unique reposts from Russ­ian sources aver­ag­ing 103 pro­pa­gan­da mes­sages month­ly. These chan­nels pro­mot­ed far-right can­di­date George Simion and the Alliance for the Union of Roma­ni­ans (AUR), a nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive par­ty. The elec­tion annul­ment marked the first such action in EU his­to­ry. Meta sub­se­quent­ly dis­rupt­ed influ­ence oper­a­tions in Roma­nia involv­ing 658 Face­book accounts using proxy infra­struc­ture to con­ceal origins.

The oper­a­tions also exploit cul­ture war themes dis­sem­i­nat­ed through Hun­gar­i­an net­works. West­ern aca­d­e­mics have appeared at the Math­ias Corv­i­nus Col­legium facil­i­ty in Cluj-Napoca, pro­mot­ing nar­ra­tives about reject­ing West­ern “wok­ism” and turn­ing toward Moscow. Roman­ian law­mak­ers ini­ti­at­ed leg­is­la­tion mir­ror­ing Hun­gary’s and Rus­si­a’s anti-LGBTQ laws. Inves­ti­ga­tors iden­ti­fied four Rus­sia-linked firms orches­trat­ing pro­pa­gan­da span­ning iden­ti­ty, reli­gion, and con­spir­a­cy themes. Despite these sus­tained efforts, Roma­ni­a’s intel­li­gence ser­vices, in coop­er­a­tion with NATO and EU part­ners, suc­cess­ful­ly coun­tered the dis­in­for­ma­tion and the pro-West­ern can­di­date secured a deci­sive victory.

Exter­nal References:

• Roma­nia annulled its pres­i­den­tial elec­tion results amid alleged Russ­ian inter­fer­ence — Atlantic Council
• What hap­pened on Tik­Tok around the Roman­ian elec­tions? — Glob­al Witness
• EU to Inves­ti­gate Tik­Tok Over Roma­ni­a’s Can­celled Pres­i­den­tial Elec­tions — OCCRP

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