Romanian President Klaus Iohannis declassified documents related to the election campaign of far-right presidential candidate Kelin Georgescu, who unexpectedly won the first round.
News.ro writes about it.
The document was prepared by the Romanian intelligence service, foreign intelligence and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and was presented at a meeting of the Supreme Council of National Defense, the countryʼs highest security body.
According to the report, Georgescu ran an aggressive advertising campaign, bypassing national election laws, and used the algorithms of some platforms, including TikTok, to accelerate his popularity.
According to Romanian intelligence, in the weeks leading up to the election, Georgescu had a very low popularity rating. In polls conducted on November 15-20, he took 6th place with 6.2% of the vote, and on November 20-21 polls showed 10.6%.
In addition, Georgescu registered zero expenses for the election campaign with CEC. However, intelligence data indicates that the TikTok account "bogpr", which is used by Romanian citizen Bohdan Pescir, is involved in financing Georgescuʼs campaign.
His involvement in financing Georgescuʼs promotion on the platform was also confirmed by TikTok representatives in a dialogue with the Romanian authorities. They confirmed the identity of the user "bogpr" and noted that he made payments totaling $381,000 between October 24 and November 24 to users of TikTok accounts involved in Georgescuʼs promotion.
The special service also found out that the payment to TikTok influencers was made through the FameUp platform to monetize online promotion activities. In some cases, influencers were recruited to cooperate by contacting FA Agency via e-mail, registered as South African, and offering a thousand euros for the distribution of a video created by it.
Presidential elections in Romania
The first round of presidential elections in Romania took place on November 24. Far-right politician Celin Georgescu and liberal pro-European candidate Elena Lasconi made it to the second round. Moreover, Lasconi overtook the current Prime Minister of the country Marcel Čolaka by only 2.7 thousand votes.
Georgescuʼs leadership turned out to be unexpected, he was accused of influencing the election through TikTok. Because of this, the European Commission even asked the platform to provide information on how the social network has reduced the risk of inauthentic or automated use of its service, as well as to list the risks arising from its system of recommended content.
The second round of presidential elections in Romania will be held on December 8.
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