section_path: Background/Previous election annulled
section_name: Previous election annulled
paragraph_text: Previous election annulled
  
  On 6 December 2024, the 2024 presidential election, was annulled by the Constitutional Court of Romania, 48 hours before the second round was to be held, citing alleged Russian intervention on behalf of independent candidate, Călin Georgescu, who took a shock lead in the first round with 23%. CSAT said the campaign was "identical" to the online campaign launched by Russia before its invasion of Ukraine. On 20 December, an investigation was published showing that PNL had seemingly paid for one of the TikTok campaigns. PNL interim president Ilie Bolojan had stated however that the campaign was altered illegally to favor Georgescu, yet had not blamed the company they worked with for the alteration.