Romania’s constitutional court has invalidated the first round of the presidential election following allegations of Russian interference, canceling the scheduled December 8, 2024 runoff. First-round winner Călin Georgescu condemned the decision as an “officialized coup.”

The Constitutional Court of Romania ordered a complete restart of the electoral process, with the Government tasked to establish new election dates and schedules. The ruling, based on Article 146(f) of the Constitution, is final and binding.

Recent declassified documents revealed a pro-Russian influence campaign utilizing 25,000 TikTok accounts to promote Georgescu’s candidacy. While Russia denies involvement, and Georgescu’s awareness of the campaign remains unclear, the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) reported over 85,000 cyber intrusion attempts targeting election infrastructure, indicating state-sponsored activity.

The U.S. State Department emphasized the importance of protecting Romanian democratic processes from foreign influence, while the European Commission has intensified its monitoring of TikTok. The platform has been directed to preserve data related to potential systemic risks to electoral processes and civic discourse in the EU.

TikTok recently disrupted two small networks promoting Georgescu and independent candidate Mircea Geoană, comprising 78 and 12 accounts respectively. Earlier in September, the platform removed 22 Romanian accounts with 300,000 followers for spreading misinformation and anti-government narratives.

The platform maintains that detected networks targeting Romanian elections have been small-scale domestic operations, while continuing to monitor both on-platform and off-platform activities to prevent covert influence operations.