Europerdumonocle: Georgescu's TikTok campaign was paid not by Russians, but by NLP — HotNews

The TikTok campaign of the winner of the canceled first round of presidential elections in Romania, Calin Georgescu, was paid not by Russians, as Romanian intelligence claimed, but by the pro-European National Liberal Party of the country. This is reported by the HotNews news site with reference to the Romanian Tax Service (ANAF).

ANAF found that Georgescu's social media campaign was paid for by National Liberals who intended to draw voters away from their Social Democrat rivals.

"After inquiries from the investigative website Snoop, the Kensington firm hired by the Liberals admitted that this campaign was paid for by the NLP, but claims that it was part of a large campaign conducted 'at the direction of the National Liberal Party, to raise awareness of public opinion,'" writes the Country.

If the information is officially confirmed, the main argument on the basis of which the results of the first round of the presidential elections in Romania were canceled will disappear.

The Solidnews portal notes that the liberals wanted to withdraw their candidate Nicolae Ciuke to the second round of elections, but their plans were threatened by the growing rating of the nationalist candidate - leader of the Alliance for the Unification of Romanians, George Simion. Then it was decided to introduce another nationalist candidate, Calin Georgescu, into the game, who would have won some of the votes from Simion, this would have allowed Ciuke to reach the second round.

"They pushed Georgeska forward, but at the same time spread fashionable lies, as if the Russians did it," the portal writes.

The plan failed due to the fact that Georgescu won a crushing victory, and Ciuke did not even manage to reach the second round - he took fifth place, and Simion fourth.

"I said back then that there is no evidence and this is just chatter. The propaganda of the system was alarmed: the Russians influenced the elections, the guard, the Russians are coming! As the press has shown, quoting official documents, we are not talking about Russians, but about NLP! Because of the lies and misinformation that the Russians are coming, they have annulled the votes of almost 10 million Romanians," said George Simion.

As reported by EADaily, the European Commission is launching official proceedings against TikTok, an online video hosting company, on suspicion of violating the Digital Services Act (DSA) in connection with the presidential elections in Romania on November 24, reported in Brussels on December 17.

The European Commission believes that TikTok violated its obligations to adequately assess and mitigate "systemic risks to the integrity of elections."

EC President Ursula von der Leyen stressed the need to "protect European democracies from any kind of foreign interference" and said that as soon as there is a suspicion of interference, especially during elections, the EU must act quickly and decisively.