Reports published by Romania’s presidency reveal massive financing for far-right, pro-Russian candidate Calin Georgescu, mainly to support his TikTok campaign. 

The campaign resulted in the sharp advance of Georgescu’s electoral support from around 6% to over 20% in the first round of the presidential election on November 24. Georgescu will face reformist candidate Elena Lasconi in the second round of the election on December 8. 

Estimates by Romanian experts put the financing for Georgescu’s campaign at over €50mn and more than €3mn per day in some periods. However, Georgescu reported no expenditures for his presidential campaign.

Romania’s presidency has published the reports provided by the intelligence services, the foreign ministry and the Special Telecommunication Services (STS) to the Supreme Council of National Defence (CSAT). 

CSAT’s November 28 report states that “cyber attacks with the aim of influencing the correctness of the electoral process” took place and, separately, that “a candidate for the presidential elections benefited from a massive exposure due to the preferential treatment that the TikTok platform granted him by not marking him as a political candidate”. 

Georgescu’s TikTok campaign was found to be the ninth-strongest at global level during the November 13-26 period ahead of the presidential elections. 

The Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI), Romania’s domestic intelligence service, singles out TikTok user Bogdan Peşchir with the account “bogpr” who has donated over €1mn for Georgescu’s electoral campaign on the platform and reveals that TikTok has failed to tag the messages circulated by paid influencers in favour of Georgescu as a political campaign. 

The SRI indicated that the financing of Tik Tok influencers was ensured through the FameUp platform, dedicated to the monetisation of promotional activities in the online environment.

According to the report submitted by the Foreign Intelligence Service (SIE) to CSAT, "Romania is a target for Russian hybrid actions, including cyber attacks and information leaks and sabotage”. 

Considering the magnitude of the claims reported by the intelligence services, it remains unclear why no action was taken to prevent the impact of the illegal support for Georgescu on the electoral process.

Following a CSAT meeting, the Romanian authorities took no action against Georgescu other than the press release published by the council, which explained that it had no specific formal involvement in the electoral process and that the state’s institutions including the prosecutors office will do their job. Romanian state officials failed to attend the hearing of TikTok representatives in the Commission for the Internal Market and Consumer Protection of the European Parliament where the Chinese platform rejected any favouritism allegations.