Romanian top court annuls presidential election result

Romania's top court annulled the result of the first round of the country's presidential election after accusations of Russian meddling and said on Friday the entire process, which was due to conclude this weekend, would have to be re-run.

The second round had been scheduled for Sunday and voting has already begun in polling stations abroad. It would have pitted Calin Georgescu, a far-right, pro-Russian candidate, against pro-European Union centrist leader Elena Lasconi.

Having polled in single digits before the first presidential election round on Nov. 24, Georgescu - who wants to end Romanian support for Ukraine against Russia's invasion - surged to a first-place finish that raised questions over how such a surprise had been possible.

A Georgescu win would have upended the EU and NATO member state's pro-Western politics, pushing it closer to a belt of states in central and eastern Europe with powerful populist, Russia-friendly politicians, including Hungary, Slovakia and Austria.

However, Friday's ruling plunged the country into institutional chaos as current President Klaus Iohannis's term ends on Dec. 21 and it was unclear who would be head of state after this date.

Analysts said the ruling may erode institutions, trigger street protests and ultimately still endanger the nation's pro-Western course.

FULL RE-RUN 

Documents declassified by Romania's top security council on Wednesday said the country was a target of "aggressive hybrid Russian attacks" during the election period.

"The electoral process to elect Romania's president will be fully re-run, and the government will set a new date and ... calendar for the necessary steps," the court said in a statement.

It added the ruling was made "seeking to ensure the fairness and legality of the electoral process". A detailed explanation of its ruling will be released at a later date. The court had validated the first presidential round on Monday.

Lasconi condemned the ruling. "The constitutional court’s decision is illegal, amoral and crushes the very essence of democracy, voting," she said.

However, Social Democrat Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu supported the move, calling it "the only correct solution".

The Dec. 8 run-off vote would have been the third consecutive ballot after the first presidential round and a Dec. 1 parliamentary election in which far-right parties gained a third of seats, though the ruling Social Democrats emerged as the largest grouping and hope to cobble together a pro-EU coalition government.

The parliamentary vote was unaffected by Friday's court ruling.

George Simion, the leader of the opposition hard-right Alliance for Uniting Romanians (AUR) called the court ruling a "coup d'etat", adding "nine politically appointed judges, scared that a candidate outside the system had all chances to become Romania's president, decided to annul Romanians' will".

DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS

In one of the declassified documents, Romania's intelligence agency said Georgescu was massively promoted on social media platform TikTok through coordinated accounts, recommendation algorithms and paid promotion. Georgescu has declared zero funds spent in the campaign.

The intelligence service also said access data for official Romanian election websites was published on Russian cyber crime platforms. The access data was probably procured by targeting legitimate users or by exploiting the legitimate training server, the agency said.

It added that it had identified more than 85,000 cyber attacks that aimed to exploit system vulnerabilities.

Russia has denied any interference in Romania's election campaigns. TikTok denies giving Georgescu special treatment, saying his account was labelled as a political account and treated like any other.

"It is extremely likely that the court will not allow Calin Georgescu to run again," said Sergiu Miscoiu, a political science professor at Babes-Bolyai University. 

Earlier this year, the court banned ultra-nationalist party leader and European Parliament member Diana Sosoaca from running for president in a move that analysts said overstepped court powers.

"There will be street protests, people will become radicalised and depending on which candidate from the radical right remains in the race, people will rally around him," said Miscoiu.

Romania's hard-currency bonds rose following the ruling. Dollar-denominated issued enjoyed the biggest gains, with the 2048 bond rising 0.7 cents to be bid at 81.15 cents in the dollar, its strongest level since mid-November, Tradeweb data showed.