A day after Romania's Constitutional Court annulled recent elections on suspicion of Russian meddling, police conducted searches this morning as part of an investigation into irregularities during the annulled first round of presidential elections won by far-right candidate Kalin Djordescu.
The ruling to nullify the vote was preceded by the Romanian presidency's decision this week to declassify a series of intelligence documents making allegations against Djordescu and Russia, including "massive" social media promotion and cyber attacks in his favor.
Three houses in the city of Brasov were searched in connection with voter corruption, money laundering and cyber-forgery, prosecutors announced.
They suspect that there was also a violation of the law on the prohibition of organizations and symbols of a fascist, racist and xenophobic nature.
The investigation is specifically focused on one person who is possibly involved in the illegal financing of the presidential candidate's election campaign, the prosecution announced without naming the nationalist candidate Kalin Đorđescu.
The Constitutional Court yesterday annulled the elections, the first round of which was held on September 24, and the second was supposed to take place on Sunday, December 8, referring to "numerous irregularities and violations of the electoral law" which "distorted" the voting and threatened "equality candidate's chances".
The court said it was annulling the election to ensure its validity and legality, and ordered the entire electoral process to be repeated, causing a shock with an unprecedented decision in Romania.
Within the EU, the last major election was annulled in 2016 in Austria, when the second round of presidential elections had to be repeated due to irregularities in the counting of votes, but no fraud was detected.
Romania's secret services drew parallels with earlier Russian election meddling efforts in Europe, and singled out 25.000 TikTok accounts as directly linked to the Djordescu campaign that "became extremely active in the two weeks leading up to the election."
The services also singled out one account that belonged to the previously unknown Bogdan Pešir, who paid out $381.000 from October 24 to November 24 to Internet users who contribute to the promotion of that candidate.
The source of the man's wealth, who worked in cryptocurrency-related firms, is not clear. He compared his support to Kalin Djordescu with the support that Elon Musk gave to the recently elected future president of the USA, Donald Trump.
Djordescu's headquarters refused to comment on today's searches.
Đorđeska unexpectedly came out on top in the first round of the election on November 24, to everyone's surprise, ahead of the favorites from the major parties.
He assessed the annulment of the election as "a kind of coup d'état".
He was supposed to face the pro-European centrist candidate Elena Laskoni in the second round on Sunday.
She also said that the vote should have taken place and condemned the "illegal decision" of the Constitutional Court, which she believes "damages democracy".
The pro-European president of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, however, welcomed the decision of the Constitutional Court. He will remain in office until the election of his successor in that position.
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