By Aoife Zuckerman BMC ’26; Image by AP News.
In early December, a shocking number of Romanian voters voted in the first round of the presidential elections for the independent candidate, Cǎlin Georgescu (Ross, Jack, and Petre 2024). Georgescu, a political outsider who had a long career in soil science for Romania, including a stint representing Romania in the United Nations Environment Program rose to the top with 22.95% of the vote in the first round (NPR). This was a surprising result as Georgescu’s campaign was a far-right one, focusing on his pro-Russia stance, anti-LGBTQ policies, and anti-EU policies (Vinocur 2024). If Georgescu were to become President of Romania, the balance of the entire Eastern European region would be at risk of changing, especially due to his support of Russia. The current President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, suggested that state meddling had occurred and released investigation results following the election surprise (McGrath 2024). The state here is unnamed in the documents put out by the Romanian government, but contextual information, investigation, and contextual information all point to Russia as the accused (Coman 2024). The staggering TikTok campaign was conducted with funding from Bogdan Peschir, a Romanian programmer currently being investigated (Allnutt et al. 2024). Following this announcement, the Romanian Constitutional Court decided to annul the first-round results and postpone elections due to interference (McGrath 2024). While situations like this are certainly unprecedented, it is useful to evaluate the potential options and their consequences due to larger questions of election security and internationally funded campaigns.
While his TikTok campaign is certainly noteworthy, Georgescu is also receiving support from far-flung villages in which people feel left behind by the current parties. As Romanian political officials have noted, the cancellation of the race which Georgescu was favored to win will allow people more time to think (Higgins and Barbulescu 2024). Though the investigation of the elections was called for, determining the correct course of action is challenging as Georgescu campaigned on state corruption and picked up voters who felt abandoned (Higgins and Barbulescu 2024). As such, state intervention in the election results, even a warranted pause, is tricky territory as the government risks proving Georgescu’s point and swaying voters who may have been on the fence during the first round. There is no doubt that Romania is valuable territory for Russia, and it seems likely that Russian interference with the goal of changing public opinion in Putin’s favor was at play. Furthermore, it spells out trouble for the EU if Romania joins Slovakia and Hungary in having pro-Putin leadership (Vinocur 2024). Despite this, it is difficult to say that an election annulment conducted in this way was the correct answer. However, the problem lies deeper than simple misinformation brought via media campaigns, the global swing toward right-wing populism is frightening and Romanian seems to be no exception, with much of Georgescu’s voting base coming from farm country (Higgins and Barbulescu 2024).
Romania warrants consideration over the next few months. The new election cycle will see its first round in March of 2025 (Coman 2024), while Goergescu and supporters decry that they are being shut out by the political elite and his main challenger agrees. More and more, these questions about Russian election interference leave Romanian politics shrouded in uncertainty. Though it is becoming increasingly clear that there was election interference, the shift in the Romanian political election cannot be wholly attributed to interference. Discovering international meddling is of course frightening and points to the bigger conflict in the region, but intranational dynamics also reveal discontent with the political system. By shirking all responsibility for this internal discontent, Romanian politicians leave the country vulnerable to more attacks. All of this spells out trouble for Romania in the following months, especially the Romanian where nearly 23% of all voters supported Georgescu’s far-right campaign which denounced alliances in the West and supported a stark challenge to women’s role in the workplace, all while using fascist rhetoric reminiscent of a Romania which is far gone. The annulment of election results allows Romanians the opportunity to reconsider the possibilities and for campaigns to consider where they went wrong.
References
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