Romanian President Nicușor Dan told Romania TV last night that he currently has a lot of materials on former presidential candidate Calin Georgescu, which clarify what happened in last year's presidential election and document Russia's interference much better, BTA reported.
“I have collected a lot of materials, of course, this was one of the promises I made during the election campaign, to clarify what happened in the November-December elections last year“, said Nicușor Dan in connection with the canceled first round of the presidential election on November 24 last year, in which Calin Georgescu was leading.
On December 6 - two days before the scheduled second round, the Constitutional Court of Romania annulled the result due to information about foreign interference, specifically from Russia. Moscow denies these accusations. The Constitutional Court ruled that the entire electoral process should start over, and in the repeat presidential elections in May this year, Nikusor Dan was elected head of state.
“I have collected a lot of materials at different levels, including the biography of Mr. Georgescu (…)“, the current president told Romania Teve, specifying that the Russian interference is now much better documented, and a synthesis of all the materials will be presented at the appropriate time.
Dan commented that last year the Romanian authorities had a relatively limited understanding of the Russian interference.
“The state institutions knew that there were several websites that were disseminating information that they believed could influence no more than 4-5-6 percent of the people in Romania, but in no case the result that we all saw. At the moment, things are much clearer. We have reports from a number of European countries with solid intelligence services that say that there is a phenomenon of manipulation, systematic disinformation by Russia in Europe. We also have many examples of cyber actions, of manipulation, disinformation“, the Romanian president pointed out.
He specified that many of the things that at that time seemed like hypotheses have since been proven and that “the decision of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Council for National Defense were completely justified“.
According to the Romanian president, the biography of Calin Georgescu is very interesting.
“How he lived in Vienna for several years and did nothing“, the head of state gave an example.
Calin Georgescu won the first round of the elections on November 24 last year, surprising almost everyone in Romania. At the time, he was unknown to the general public, but he had gained popularity on the Internet, where hundreds of profiles shared his messages and promoted him.
Romanian authorities revealed that businessman Bogdan Peşkir used the account “bogpr“, through which he made donations on TikTok worth over one million euros, to finance Georgescu's campaign. The information was confirmed by TikTok representatives and Romanian intelligence.