Romaniaʼs top court made an unexpected move this week ordering a full recount of presidential election votes‚ after independent candidate Calin Georgescu shocked everyone with his win (despite polling in single digits before the vote)
The 62-year old far-right politician who has praised 1930s fascist figures and shown pro-Russian views; got significant support from young voters and overseas romanians through his tik-tok focused campaign. His success raised questions about social-mediaʼs role in modern elections: particularly tik-toks involvement
The Supreme Defence Council pointed to cyber-attacks targeting electoral process: “A presidential candidate got massive exposure through preferential treatment on tik-tok platform without proper political content labeling“. The platform quickly denied these claims saying its “categorically false“ that Georgescuʼs account got special treatment
The recount decision creates a tight timeline problem - theres only a few days to check 9.46 million votes before dec-8 run-off between Georgescu and centrist Elena Lasconi. “One combats extremism through votes not backstage games“ - wrote Lasconi on social media criticizing the courts involvement
The Constitutional Court is interfering in the democratic process for the second time
The situation got more complex when Cristian Terhes (who got 1% of votes) challenged results claiming vote transfer issues. Meanwhile Marcel Ciolacu current prime-minister finished just 2‚740 votes behind second place raising additional questions about final standings