section_path: Abstract
section_name: Abstract
paragraph_text: Presidential elections were held in Romania on 24 November 2024. A second round was due to be held on 8 December 2024 as no candidate achieved an absolute majority in the first round. However, on 6 December 2024 the Constitutional Court annulled the election, alleging that a Russian influence operation had impacted the vote. This was the ninth presidential election held in post-revolution Romania.
  
  The result of the first round was a surprise, with independent nationalist candidate Călin Georgescu achieving a relative majority of votes, while the center-right politician Elena Lasconi finished second and also advanced to the runoff vote. Initially viewed as a minor candidate with little chance of victory, Georgescu quickly gained significant support through campaigning on non-traditional media outlets such as TikTok, receiving particular popularity among those disaffected with current Romanian politics, including youth, farmers, rural voters, and members of the working class. He was considered the front-runner in the race, and polling conducted after the first round of voting found him to be the most popular figure in the country's politics.
  
  Leading issues included corruption, LGBTQ rights, the role of Christianity in public life, and the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War. Georgescu, who has run on a nationalist platform, has criticised the National Coalition for Romania, a grand coalition of Romania's two largest parties, as corrupt. He has favoured increasing the role of Christianity in public life, promised to outlaw " LGBT propaganda ", put forward plans towards partly nationalising important industries, and promoted neutrality and national sovereignty, as well as non-interventionism towards the Ukrainian War, without exiting NATO or the European Union. Lasconi supports secularism, further European integration, alignment with the United States and the West, and increasing military funding towards Ukraine.
  
  Georgescu's campaign has been endorsed by an assortment of Christian democratic, nationalist and agrarian political parties, including the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, S.O.S. Romania, Party of Young People, Romanian Socialist Party and the National Peasants' Party. Lasconi's campaign has been endorsed by the National Liberal Party, Democracy and Solidarity Party, Save Romania Union, and Renewing Romania's European Project, among several other parties. This was the first time since 2000 that a nationalist candidate made it into the second round instead of either the National Liberals or the now defunct Democratic Liberal Party. It was also the first time in the post-Communist period that the Social Democrats failed to reach the run-off.
  
  The aftermath of the first presidential vote was controversial and led Romania to the brink of a political crisis. President Iohannis, who chairs the country's Supreme Council of Defence, accused Georgescu's campaign of being supported by Russia. Following vote rigging allegations made by a minor candidate, the Constitutional Court of Romania ordered a recount, but ultimately decided to confirm the results of the first round on 2 December. On 6 December, the Constitutional Court reversed their decision and controversially annulled the first round of the election, after intelligence documents were declassified stating that Russia had run a coordinated online campaign to promote Georgescu.
  
  On 20 December, an investigation was published showing that the PNL, one of the governing parties, had paid for the TikTok campaigns that the Supreme Council of National Defence said were "identical" to the online campaign launched by Russia before the invasion of Ukraine and which led to the cancellation of the first round.