reuters.com
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  • Buffalox@lemmy.worldEnglish
    36·
    13 days ago

    Hey Russian election interference is perfectly fine and perfectly legal.
    -Trump

    Having polled in single digits before the first presidential election round on Nov. 24, Calin Georgescu - who wants to end Romanian support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion - surged to a victory that raised questions over how such a surprise had been possible

    Romania’s top security council on Wednesday said the country was a target of “aggressive hybrid Russian attacks” during the election period.

    The electoral process to elect Romania’s president will be fully re-run,

    It’s a gutsy move, but I think it’s a good call.

    • FundMECFSResearchEnglish
      23·
      13 days ago

      The court’s decision follows dramatic revelations of alleged foreign influence on the contest. Earlier this week, the Romanian government declassified intelligence files that strongly suggested to a Russian-backed campaign to corrupt the election.

      The documents said 25,000 pro-Georgescu accounts on social media app TikTok burst into action just two weeks before the first-round vote.

      Yep I think the move is harsh. But this is literally happening in every other democracy and they are just pretending it isn’t. Kudos to romania for tackling the issue head-on.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        12 days ago

        Kudos to romania for tackling the issue head-on.

        Exactly, accepting Russian propaganda needs to stop. Russian propaganda must be as illegal as Nazism is in most countries.

    • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
      13·
      13 days ago

      I am not so sure about this.

      The people who made their opinion based on tiktok will be pissed off. The article mentions no proof of rigging or other direct interference with the voting process itself. This is a huge problem for democracy, if the image is that only the candidates approved by the court are allowed to be elected and unfavorable election results get annulled. And Russia will play this angle heavily.

      Unless there is specific evidence of the voting process itself being rigged, this sounds like a recipe for disaster. Then Russia could even get a civil war in an EU country out of it rather than just a pro-Russian candidate winning.

      • FaceDeer@fedia.io
        7·
        13 days ago

        The fact that they’re re-running the election rather than just handing it to the #2 candidate should alleviate a lot of these concerns. If after a second run through with full information available and the foreign influence networks suppressed the population still genuinely seems to want the Russian asset in charge then I guess at that point you have to sigh and give it to them.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        12 days ago

        Unless there is specific evidence of the voting process itself being rigged, this sounds like a recipe for disaster.

        I disagree, if Russia has made massive manipulative propaganda based on lies, that needs to be addressed. An election should not be based on lies. Especially not outside propaganda.

        By that standard, the 2016 presidential election in USA was also based on much Russian propaganda, but the Americans didn’t have the balls to call it out directly.
        And now they have elected a fraudulent criminal for president. In my country, the parliament would without a doubt deem Trump unfit to serve.
        In this situation it is USA that is a dysfunctional democracy, and not Romania.

        • Saleh@feddit.orgEnglish
          2·
          12 days ago

          So who gets to decide what was “outside propaganda” grave enough to not recognise an election result? Will this be a general criteria or just a convienent selectively enforced one?

          Because if this is a general criteria, next time Russia just needs to make propaganda for the strongest party and have the court annule the result and redo the election infinitely.

          If it is only selectively enforced, it is just undemocratic and a measure by the current rulers to abolish democracy. Think about people like Orban just claiming there was too much foreign propaganda for the opposition.

          Finally from a democratic theory point of view it doesnt work. Either every vote has the same value and you have a democracy. Or there is arbitrary decisions on whose vote is worthless because they were too dumb to fall for foreign propaganda, effectively removing the fairness and freedom of the vote.

          Also these measures dont address the route cause. If the propaganda can get people to elect someone it can get them to do other things, like revolting, sabotage, violent crime… You need to address the propaganda channels and psychological attack angles.

          • Buffalox@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            12 days ago

            So who gets to decide what was “outside propaganda”

            That’s a weird question, since Romania already demonstrated that, and it’s in the article. The top security council brought the evidence, and the top court made the judgement.
            So it wasn’t a single entity, but the combination of 2 of the highest security institution together with the highest court. That’s EXACTLY the way to do it.
            They did exactly what it’s their job to do, which blatantly failed in USA, where the courts are compromised too.
            I really hope that Romanian leading by example will become a model for the rest of Europe. AND that EU will begin to retaliate against Russia for undermining our democracies.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        12 days ago

        The people who made their opinion based on tiktok will be pissed off.

        You know there are very specific rules about campaigning for an election.
        Allegedly Georgescu’s campaign disclosed zero expenses, yet it was obvious there was a campaign that advertised him with thousands accounts on ticktock.

        Obviously you shouldn’t be allowed to break campaign rules just because you are a foreign intelligence service sabotaging an election.
        Notice that things like the shitty Super-packs in USA are ALSO illegal in EU.
        In EU there is regulation where major interest parties need to be declared. And at least 1 such entity was operating illegally on behalf of Georgescu.

        So it seems to me, the legal side of the decision is pretty clear.

  • Thoralf Will@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    22·
    12 days ago

    For how long do we keep pretending to live in peace? Yes, there are no rockets flying from Russia (yet). But undermining political institutions is not less dangerous than a rocket.

    • Buffalox@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      12 days ago

      Absolutely.
      There’s a pretty strong sentiment in EU that we are in fact in a hybrid war with Russia now.
      So maybe we are finally reaching a point where we stop pretending?
      EU Countries that don’t do much to help Ukraine, are not doing their Due diligence.

  • perestroika@lemm.eeEnglish
    12·
    13 days ago

    As far as I understood, Georgescu declared zero campaign expenses and then had thousands of accounts advertising him, primarily on Telegram and TikTok (side note: who the hell does politics on TikTok?). propelling him to the run-off election.

    That does sound a bit fishy indeed.

    I’m not the Romanian supreme court, but if they had a look at the disclosed intel, and decided a foreign state was messing with their elections, it is within their rights to invalidate and rerun the process. A re-run is frustrating, but getting tricked is even more frustrating.