DISINFO: It has been six months since the coup d'état with the participation of the Romanian Constitutional Court
SUMMARY
Six months have passed since the PSD-PNL-UDMR coup d'état was perpetrated with the extraordinary participation of the Romanian Constitutional Court. Ever since then, the system-emanated president Nicusor Dan has been struggling to gather evidence of a Russian involvement in Romania's 2024 cancelled elections..
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the annulled 2024 Romanian presidential elections.
The first round of the presidential elections in Romania, which took place on November 24, 2024 and was won by candidates Călin Georgescu and Elena Lasconi, was cancelled by the Constitutional Court of Romania who invoked many reasons. In its decision taken on December 6, the Court noted (p.11): „The main aspects imputed to the electoral process regarding the election of the President of Romania in 2024 are those regarding the manipulation of voters' votes and the distortion of equal opportunities for electoral competitors, through the non-transparent use and in violation of electoral legislation of digital technologies and artificial intelligence in the conduct of the electoral campaign, as well as through the financing of the electoral campaign from undeclared sources, including online”.
Part of a broader, sometimes AI driven disinformation wave consistently targeting the legitimacy of Romanian institutions, this narrative was extensively documented by Romanian fact checking organisations and extensively used during and after the May 2025 elections to delegitimise Romanian democratic processes and institutions, as well as to incite violence, alleging that the 2024 elections were annulled without any proof, under the pretext of Russian interference and that the 2025 Presidential elections were rigged by "the system". This narrative was disseminated, like in other cases, just before the December 2026 election of the mayor of Bucharest and of the President of the Buzau County Council.
Earlier in October, the Romanian Presidential Administration presented an analysis of the Russian hybrid war in Romania and announced the release of a more extensive report on the Annulment of the 2024 Presidential elections in January 2026.