Romania's top court annuls presidential vote won by independent candidate

Romania's top court has annulled the first round of the country's presidential election, days after allegations of a coordinated online campaign to promote the independent candidate who won the first round.

The Constitutional Court's unprecedented decision — which is final — came on Thursday after President Klaus Iohannis declassified intelligence on Wednesday that alleged Russia ran a sprawling campaign comprising thousands of social media accounts to promote Calin Georgescu across platforms like TikTok and Telegram.

Russia has already denied the allegations.

"We are not in the habit of interfering in elections in other countries, particularly in Romania, nor do we intend to do so now," the Kremlin said last week.

Georgescu, a former senior civil servant, emerged as the frontrunner on November 24, securing 22.94 percent of votes.

He was due to face reformist Elena Lasconi of the Save Romania Union party in a runoff on Sunday.

A new date will now be set to rerun the first round.

Legal complaints

The intelligence files were from the Romanian Intelligence Service, the Foreign Intelligence Service, the Special Telecommunication Service and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

In light of the intelligence release, Romania’s Constitutional Court received multiple legal complaints urging it to annul the first-round vote but it is not clear yet on what grounds it made the decision.

The same court last week ordered a recount of the first-round votes, which added to the myriad controversies that have engulfed a chaotic election cycle.