The presidential election in Romania must be completely repeated. According to its own statements, the country’s constitutional court decided this on Friday.

The judges based this on revelations from the Romanian secret service that the country was the target of an “aggressive Russian hybrid attack”. The right-wing extremist and pro-Russian presidential candidate Călin Georgescu was massively promoted via the Tiktok app with the help of coordinated accounts, recommendation algorithms and paid advertising.

In the first round of the presidential election on November 24th, Georgescu surprisingly came in first place. He was scheduled to compete in the decisive runoff election this Sunday against the conservative-liberal politician Elena Lasconi, who came second in the first round. According to polls, Georgescu had the best chance.

Far-right parties, which often have pro-Russian sympathies, also performed well in Romania’s parliamentary election last Sunday. However, the election was won by the ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD), which now wants to form a pro-European government again. The court does not question the integrity of the parliamentary election.