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And one more question: where is Laura Codruța Kövesi now? The lady who built her career for a long time through the Romanian State Prosecutor's Office and the National Anti-Corruption Directorate in this country, and later advanced to the EU's Chief Prosecutor's Office, where she still works today, is often cited as an example of an uncompromising fighter for the protection of legality. The latest developments in Romania show the exact opposite: not only is there no longer legality, but a dangerous precedent is being constructed that could cost all of Europe a lot. All that time Laura Kövesi, of course, is silent. The decision of the Constitutional Court of Romania to annul the presidential elections is such a “mess” that it is difficult to choose from which side to begin criticizing this incident.
As a brief reminder, in the second round of the presidential elections (the first round was held on November 24), Calin Georgescu (who won about 23% in the first round) and Elena Lasconi (19.18%) advanced. Current Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu finished in third place, with 19.15%, only 3000 votes less than Lasconi. For this reason, immediately after the first round there were announcements that a new vote count would be requested “through the courts.” However, Prime Minister Ciolacu’s campaign headquarters gave up on this, probably faced with the “threat called Georgescu.” The “mainstream” parties did not need disputes and debates, regardless of whether they were in power or opposition, but quite the opposite – homogenization against an alternative candidate. Georgescu, as an alternative candidate to the “mainstream” of Romanian politics, surprised everyone, including probably himself. He entered the election race as a complete outsider, and at the very beginning of the campaign, public opinion researchers “measured” his rating at a modest 2-4 percent. During the campaign, however, everything turned “backwards,” including the complete debacle of Mircea Geoana, who was announced as the absolute favorite this summer, and ended up with a modest 6.3 percent. Instead of a new vote count, a “media-political tsunami” against Georgescu followed, directed according to well-known patterns and algorithms. The label of extreme right-winger is among the milder, compared to everything that could be heard. Georgescu’s sins are his vocal opposition to the war in Ukraine, as well as his criticism of the World Economic Forum. Considering his professional biography, decades of work on the topic of sustainable development and cooperation with various (non)governmental international organizations, what he says about global processes and trends almost seems like an “insider’s view.”
Lasconi was supported by Maia Sandu and Salome Zurabishvili, representatives of almost all “mainstream” parties, practically the entire non-governmental sector, and the patriarch also made a statement about his “firm commitment to Romania’s membership in the EU,” which could nevertheless be interpreted as a partial and indirect “distancing” from Georgescu. Because, in the “media-political tsunami,” everything was contextualized in a new way, including Romania’s membership in the EU. In other words, voters were led to the conclusion that if Georgescu won, the country’s membership in the EU would be called into question. However, nothing could confuse voters. Polls conducted four days before the second round of the presidential elections showed that Georgescu would surely win with 62-67% of the votes.
And then the Constitutional Court stepped in. In order to protect the “correctness and legality of the electoral process,” this institution, after reviewing intelligence from the Romanian security services, annulled the elections because there was a suspicion that a “non-state actor” had interfered in the electoral process. The exact wording is that there was a “correlation with the operational activities of a state actor.” The published decision and the accompanying explanation do not mention anywhere that this “state actor” was Russia, but it was not necessary to emphasize this in detail. The “mainstream” media and politicians did their job again, accusing Georgescu of winning the first round thanks to Russian assistance and manipulation on the TikTok social network.
But is it really possible to influence an electorate of 18 million people through 25,000 TikTok accounts?
Why is this a big “mess” for the Constitutional Court? First, the court’s explanation does not at all indicate that there was any interference by “state actors,” it does not even indicate that there were any unusual “manipulations.” What can be seen from the explanation is that this is a classic digital marketing and the implementation of a pre-election campaign via social networks. The campaign is based on the connection (networking) of 25,000 accounts (on the TikTok and Telegram networks), the coordinated broadcasting of pre-election materials (speeches, messages, quotes) and paid “influencers” who supported Georgescu. This kind of digital marketing is used by all serious corporations that decide to advertise or promote themselves through social networks, and it can even be stated that these 25,000 networked accounts for this purpose are not an impressive number. For the dissemination of pre-election material digitally, payments ranged from about 80 to 1000 euros, which are usual market prices (tariffs) in this part of Europe. It is also claimed that some accounts were registered in the past, for example in 2016, and then became inactive, only to be reactivated now, which raises suspicion. This is also an old construction, put forward back in 2016 against Donald Trump, about how “Russian security services” massively register accounts on social networks, which are then activated in election campaigns. This thing with accounts being (de)activated has already been explained in other examples, since it is understandable that individuals interested in politics, political groups, organizations and parties mobilize just before the elections. Hence the intensive sharing of messages and videos from certain accounts every four years or just before the elections. So, in general, the explanation by the court simply does not make sense.
Secondly, this explanation doesn’t show anywhere, not does it prove the connection between the campaign conducted on social networks and the growth of popularity. Georgescu had convincing media appearances (by far the largest number of viewers followed the debates with his participation, regardless of who the other interlocutors were, which is significant data), he also had other forms of campaigning, so why would only accounts from TikTok influence the voters’ decision? How is it even possible to claim such a thing? Third, if it is possible to decisively influence the electorate through 25,000 connected accounts on two social networks, with a total number of 18 million voters, then the question is what is happening to that society? What is the situation among Romanians? Or the question is: what legitimacy do the “elitist parties” of the “mainstream” have? Fourth, if there was indeed “Russian interference” in the electoral process, and the outcome of the first round of elections was decided because of that interference, the question arises: what is the state of Romanian institutions today? From the perspective of security theories and available data, Romania is a NATO member, with respectable security structures, a huge budget for security purposes and an important factor in regional security in Southeast Europe.
Romania’s Constitutional Court made a political decision under external pressure and caused irreparable damage to the country.
Consciously or unconsciously, it was the Constitutional Court that sent the message that none of these conclusions are correct, and that the country is “run by Russian services”, capable of even “electing” the president. Completely paradoxically, the Prime Minister of Romania welcomed the Constitutional Court’s decision, adding that “the result was distorted due to interference from Russia.” Not a word about his responsibility anywhere. If there was indeed interference, and that interference was not detected and prevented during the campaign or even before the campaign, then the responsibility for such a security lapse also lies with the Prime Minister, who must at least offer to resign. It is unnecessary to waste words on the heads of the institutions directly responsible for monitoring, analyzing, and preventing interference; they should have resigned or been replaced long ago.
It is quite clear that the Constitutional Court made a political decision, under external pressure and causing irreparable damage to Romania. Simply put, the world, and especially its non-Western part, will now look at Romanian politics with different eyes. What is especially significant for everyone else in Romania’s neighborhood, and even more so in Europe, after this case, is the danger of introducing a completely new practice in organizing electoral processes. It is enough for the security services to “scribble” on paper more or less convincing analyses based on the manipulation of credible data, to find a legal basis for such analyses to be (mis)used and to manage the electoral processes on this basis. With such a methodology, it is possible to eliminate literally every “undesirable candidate” from the electoral process, that is, it is possible to define the outcome of the electoral process in advance. What happened in Romania is a great challenge for European democracy, human rights and freedoms of all Europeans. A precedent is being created that can be applied anywhere, anytime and against anyone.
