About that Russian Interference in the Romanian Presidential Elections

You remember that election, where unknown nut-job Călin Georgescu came in first, and then the Romanian Supreme Court voided the elections because of a Russian meddling in the election via TikTok?

Well, it turns out that it was the mainstream center right party that ran the campaign, because they thought that it would divert votes from their main opposition. 

So, are they going to the runoff then?  Of course not.

A communications agency picked influencers to make TikTok videos about the qualities of a future Romanian president for the centre-right PNL party, endorsing little-known ultranationalist Georgescu instead.

Romania’s center-right National Liberal Party (PNL) has paid for a campaign on videosharing platform TikTok which ultimately led to the win of far-right ultranationalist candidate Calin Georgescu in the first round of the presidential election on 24 November, a report published by investigative outlet Snoop.ro suggests.

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The report quotes a source from Romania’s tax authority, which conducted the investigation into the political spending, who said, "it is a shock for everyone that the public money offered by taxpayers to the PNL was used to promote another candidate."

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The Snoop.ro report also suggests that the TikTok campaign is not the only tool from which Georgescu benefited: IT expert Bogdan Peșchir, known as "BogPR," donated over €1 million to users of TikTok accounts that promoted Georgescu. EU Commission investigation

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The election was annulled after the Constitutional Court received evidence of Russian interference in the voting process, particularly on TikTok, as provided by the country’s intelligence services.

Sounds to me like some serious rat-f%$#ing is going on, and my guess is that the rat-f%$#ers in question hail from both Moscow and Brussels.

When elephants fight, the grass suffers.