The United States has expressed concern about possible foreign interference in Romania’s presidential election following the revelation of documents showing that the country was the target of “aggressive hybrid Russian attacks” during a period of three consecutive votes.
After polling in single digits, pro-Russian ultranationalist Calin Georgescu won the first round of the presidential election on November 24, causing widespread surprise in the European Union and the NATO member state.
Documents revealed by Romania’s security council on Wednesday showed that Georgescu was massively promoted on the social media platform TikTok through coordinated accounts, recommendation algorithms and paid promotion. Georgescu declared that he did not spend any money on the campaign.
They also showed compromised login data on Romanian election websites and more than 85,000 cyberattacks during the election. Romania’s intelligence agency reported that the size, methods and coordination of the campaign pointed to a foreign state.
In a statement, the US State Department said Washington is concerned about the council’s report “on Russian involvement in malign cyber activities designed to influence the integrity of the Romanian electoral process.”
“Romania’s hard-won progress, anchoring itself in the transatlantic community, cannot be reversed by foreign actors seeking to divert Romania’s foreign policy away from its Western alliances,” it said in a statement.
“Any such change would have serious negative impacts on U.S. security cooperation with Romania, while a decision to restrict foreign investment would discourage American companies from continuing to invest in Romania.”
The European Commission, in turn, issued a “retention order” to TikTok, ordering the platform to freeze and preserve data related to the real or foreseeable risks that its service could pose to electoral processes and civic discourse in the bloc of 27 nations.
“The Commission is ordering the preservation of documents and information regarding any systematic violation of TikTok’s terms of service that prohibit the use of monetization features to promote political content on the service,” it said.
The order applies to EU elections in the period between November 2024 and March 2025, he added.
“We are already cooperating with the Commission and will continue to do so,” a TikTok spokesperson said in an email. “We are eager to establish the facts in light of some of the speculation and inaccurate reports we have seen.”
Russia has previously denied any interference in Romania’s election campaigns and TikTok denied it gave preferential treatment to Georgescu, although it said it removed networks of suspicious accounts only after the first presidential round.
An AtlasIntel opinion poll, conducted on December 2-4 and cited by news site hotnews.ro, showed that Georgescu would defeat centrist leader Elena Lasconi in the December 8 presidential runoff by a margin of 47% to 43% . About 6.5% of respondents said they would void their ballots.
However, the poll also showed that 57% of Romanians have more confidence in Lasconi than Georgescu to keep Romania anchored in the EU and NATO.
This content was originally published in USA express concern about possible interference in election in Romania on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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