By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-12-07 06:16:16 | Updated at 2024-12-14 01:55:25
6 days ago
A geopolitical firestorm is erupting within the European Union and Nato ranks, and Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok is caught in the middle.
On Friday, Romania’s constitutional court dramatically annulled the results of its first round presidential election held last month, after intelligence services warned of “aggressive hybrid action” by Russia to influence the vote.
A run-off had been scheduled for Sunday, in which Calin Georgescu, a far-right candidate with pro-Russian and anti-Nato views, had been favoured to win, in what would have been the latest shock to establishment politics across the West.
Georgescu’s views on geopolitics and economics, along with his embrace of conspiracy theories, have made waves across Europe, in a week that the French government fell under pressure from the far-left and right, and a month after the German one collapsed.
Georgescu has vowed to pull Romania’s support for Ukraine and repair ties with Russia, China and Hungary. He has vowed to nationalise public utilities and push out foreign investors. He has also endorsed a series of conspiracy theories, including one stating that the bubbles in fizzy drinks contain nanochips that “enter you like a laptop”.
He came from obscurity to win November’s first round and, despite the controversies, had held a healthy lead ahead of Sunday’s run-off. However, the court on Friday annulled “the entire electoral process regarding the election of the president of Romania”, leaving the whole process in limbo.
