Massive unprecedented pushback for Putin's election meddling, from Romania

In a global first, Romania cancels its presidential election due to Russian interference. Will the US and Europe take note?

For nearly two decades, Russian President Vladimir Putin has used election interference as a weapon to reshape the global order in his favor. From his meddling in US elections to his support for Brexit and far-right movements across Europe, the Russian dictator has worked to destabilize the West. A counterpunch has come from an unlikely quarter: Romania.

The country’s Constitutional Court on Friday annulled the Nov. 24 first round of presidential elections due to evidence of Russian interference (see earlier article), taking a stand where other affected countries have been flailing. It is, quite stunningly, a global precedent that draws a line in the Putinesque mud.

The immediate result is that the second and final round of the election, which had been scheduled for Sunday, will be cancelled. In that round, far-right pro-Putin candidate Calin Georgescu was to have faced the liberal candidate, Elena Lasconi.

There is mounting evidence that Georgescu, who came out of nowhere to place first with 22 percent in the first round, has been massively assisted by a last-minute TikTok campaign featuring 5,000 accounts and about 50 million impressions and paid for — according to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken — by Russia.

Why? Well, that’s because the anti-vaxxer Georgescu, who says he’s met aliens and denies the moon landing took place, hates NATO and the European Union in addition to admiring Putin. This, despite Russia’s history of bullying and oppression of Romania. The country is just now recovering from the economic devastation caused by the Communist regime imposed by the Soviet Union, of which Putin is a nostalgist.

There is a valid criticism of the court’s decision: Lasconi had been expected to win, meaning that Romania’s membership in the European Union and NATO would have remained assured and Romania would have had its first woman president. But either way, this is the most dramatic pushback against the Russian election interference that appears to have become a bug — or perhaps a feature — of modern politics.