When angry crowds chased the last communist dictator in the Warsaw Pact, Nicolae Ceaușescu, into a helicopter in 1989 it marked a new beginning for Romania, Ceaușescu’s rule having being characterized as one of, if not the most repressive communist governments in Eastern Europe. 

Just fifteen years seperated Ceaușescu’s execution and the bloody events of 1989 from Romania joining NATO in 2004 and then the European Union in 2007. Romania’s acceptance into the Western political and cultural sphere has rewarded the country with a cumlative foreign direct inveastment of $170 billion since 1989, with life expectancy and GDP per capita consistently rising since 2007. With infrastuure improvments, the creation of a multi-party political system and citizens being twice as a rich as in the late 20th century, Romania is undoubtedly a model for tranistioning towards the Western sphere.  

It would be absurd to compare the events of 2024 with the Ceaușescu era, but Romania is now facing a new chapter of democratic backsliding, one which western news and governments are shamelessly queit about.  

On Friday 6th December 2024, The Constitutional Court of Romania annulled the first round of the Presidential Election based on unconvincing evidence of Russian involvement in the first-round election victory of the bizzare conspiracy theorist Calin Georgescu. 

The first round of voting concluded on November 24^th, 2024, in which Calin Georgescu, who used TikTok as his main campaign tool, received the largest share of the votes at 22.94%, nearly 400,000 more than runner up Elena Lasconi of the Save Romania Union.  

The final run-off between these two candidates was scheduled to be held on the 8^th of December, but shockingly just two days before that, incumbent president Klaus Iohannis announced a legal ruling which cancelled the election. He justified such action by sharing classified information with the public that 800 TikTok accounts backing Georgescu had become active in the weeks preceding the first round. Thousands of other bot accounts had also been activated in the run up to the election with one paying out $381,000 to users who promoted Georgescu’s campaign.  

The Constitutional Court of Romania, responsible for the cancelation of the election, is almost entirely comprised of members appointed by Romania’s dominant political party, the Social Democratic Party. Following the announcement of the election annulment, Romanian police followed up on the legal ruling by raiding the home of Georgescu’s key donor on charges of “voter corruption, money laundering and cyber fraud” and arrested his core security team. 

In the absurdity of the situation, pro-EU candidate Elena Lasconi, who was set to face Georgescu in the final round, even highlighted the ridiculous situation Romania had allowed itself to get into. Noting that the situation has created further distrust in the Romanian democratic system, she commented “Today is the moment when the Romanian state trampled over democracy, God, the Romanian people, the truth and the law will prevail and will punish those who are guilty of destroying our democracy.”  

It is fair to suggest, that had a sitting president, of any nation, cancelled an election mid-way through its due process on the basis of American interference on social media, there would be ample Western disgust. First and foremost, one must ask how a candidate was able to progress to election day if his campaign was corrupt, and having won the election one must now question the authorities and ask whether there was even interference at all. If one concludes that there had been interference, was it enough to change the outcome of the election? Citizens still walked into a voting booth and cast their vote to Georgescu.  

Furthermore, Western political actors must ask themselves how they came to be in a position whereby a Chinese-owned digital platform has become the most potent political campaigning tool. Western governments must accept that we now inhabit a world where social media has superseded traditional campaigning methods, opening the democratic process to malicious actors. It is inevitably a part of modern elections, and while security agencies can work to counter such behavior, it is unwise to cancel elections mid-way through on the basis of it.  

All in all, it is a horribly bad look. Similar accusations had been made during the recent elections in Moldova and Georgia. The accusations suggest that citizens are unable to make a fair judgement if they are given misleading information. Such a premise opens up a much greater, far reaching debate regarding information warfare and even the premises of democracy. After all, if the idea of citizens collectively processing information in order to select the best candidate never worked in practice, why believe in democracy at all? 

Furthermore, in the context of former communist countries, the accusations of voter manipulation assumes that citizens do not align strongly with Russia unless they are coerced to do so. If Western political actors cannot believe that a significant proportion of voters in Romania, Georgia and Moldova sympathize with Russia, reject aid to Ukraine and hold religious-conservative attitudes, then they are living in their own fairytale devoid from reality.  

Had Russia or any other malign actor wished to meddle in the Romanian election, then their core aim was most probably to disturb the electoral process, creating confusion and chaos in their path. By cancelling the election, the incumbent president has played into the hands of those who had potential malign intent in the region. I suspect, that when this election is held for a second time, if he is not disqualified, Calin Georgescu will win the first round by an even greater margin.