By Inés M.Pousadela, CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.
On 6 December 2024, Romania’s Constitutional Court made an unprecedented decision: with just two days to go before a presidential runoff expected to bring a far-right, Russia-sympathising candidate to power, the court took the extraordinary step of annulling the election due to evidence of massive Russian interference. It was the first time an EU member state has cancelled an election over social media disinformation. It may not be the last.
Romania’s six-month electoral crisis, which finally concluded on 18 May with centrist Nicușor Dan’s runoff victory over far-right nationalist George Simion, offers both a stark warning and a glimmer of hope for democracies worldwide. The crisis began when Călin Georgescu, an obscure far-right candidate who’d consistently polled in single figures, shocked the political establishment by coming first in the November 2024 presidential first round with close to 23 per cent of the vote. A NATO-sceptic and Russia sympathiser, Georgescu benefited from what was later revealed to be a sophisticated disinformation campaign orchestrated by a ‘state actor’ widely understood to be Russia.
