Romania's scrapping of election over interference could inspire rest of EU

Move raises political expectations in bloc, may spell trouble for all social media firms

- Jonathan Eyal

BRUSSELS - Romania has made global history by becoming the first country to cancel an entire national election after its authorities released details of what appeared to be a significant attempt to influence the results through the misuse of TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media platform.

On Dec 6, Romania's Constitutional Court, the country's highest tribunal, ruled that the first round of the Romanian presidential election, which took place on Nov 24, should be declared null and void and that a planned run-off election on Dec 8 should not take place either.

The court promised to release a justification for its decision soon, and new voting dates have yet to be set.

But there is no doubt that the ruling came in response to accusations by Romania's domestic intelligence service that one presidential candidate benefited from a "highly organised" campaign on social media "coordinated by a state-sponsored actor" - a diplomatic but very transparent reference to Russia.

Unusually, the ruling was unanimously supported by all of Romania's top nine judges. The move could inspire governments and legal authorities throughout the European Union and spell big trouble for all social media companies.

Romania follows the French electoral model of holding two rounds of presidential election.

In the first round, anyone can stand. But unless a candidate gains an absolute majority of the votes cast, only the two top-placed candidates go into the second and decisive ballot.

To everyone's surprise, Mr Calin Georgescu - a far-right and largely unknown candidate - topped the results in the first round of voting held on Nov 24, gaining almost 23 per cent of the 9.5 million votes cast.

This was far ahead of Mrs Elena Lasconi, a mainstream centrist politician, who came second with 19 per cent.