US Concerned About Potential Interference In Romanian Election
BUCHAREST, December 5, 2024 (Saudi Arabia Breaking News) – The U.S. voiced concern about potential foreign interference in Romanian’s presidential election after the declassification of documents showing the country was a target of “aggressive hybrid Russian attacks”, during a period of three consecutive ballots.
Having previously polled in a single digits, pro – Russia ultranationalist Calin Georgescu surged to victory in the first presidential election round on Nov. 24, causing widespread surprise in the European Union and NATO member state.
Documents declassified by Romanian’s top security council on Wednesday showed Georgescu was massively promoted on social media platform TikTok though coordinated accounts, recommendation algorithms and paid promotion. Georgescu has declared zero funds spent in the campaign.
They also showed compromised login data to Romanian election websites and over 85,000 cyber attacks during the election. Romanian’s intelligence agency said the campaign’s size, methods and coordination pointed to a foreign state.
In a statement, the U.S. State Department said Washington is concerned about the council’s report “of Russian involvement in malign activity designed to influence the integrity of the Romanian electoral process”.
“Romanian’s hard-earned progress anchoring itself in the transatlantic community cannot be turned back by foreign across seeking to shift Romanian’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 Romanian, while a decision to restrict foreign investment would discourage U.S. companies from continuing to invest in Romania”.
The European Commission meanwhile issued a “Retention order” to TikTok ordering the platform to freeze and preserve data related to actual or foreseeable risks its service could pose on electoral processes and civic discourse in the 27-nation bloc.
“The Commission is ordering preservation of documents and information regarding any systematic infringement of TikTok’s terms of serving prohibiting the use of monetization features for the promotion of political content on the service”, it said.
The order applied to elections in the EU in the period between November 2024 through March 2025, it added.
“We have already been cooperating with the Commission and will continue to do so”, a TikTok spokesperson said in an email. “We look forward to establishing 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 has denied it gave Georgescu preferential treatment, though it said it removed suspect networks of accounts only after the first presidential round.