The Romanian National Liberal Party (PNL), one of the ruling parties in Romania, financed a TikTok campaign that intelligence services used as evidence of “foreign interference” in favor of independent candidate Calin Georgescu, according to a new report by the investigative portal snoop.ro.
Georgescu won the first round of presidential elections in Romania on November 24 by a landslide. However, the country’s highest constitutional court annulled the vote due to a TikTok campaign that allegedly heavily promoted Georgescu, who was labeled by leading Western media as a “far-right pro-Russian candidate.” The justification for annulling the election due to the TikTok campaign was that “the campaign appears to correspond to influence operations carried out by the Kremlin in Ukraine and Moldova.”
Also, interestingly, Politico is completely misrepresenting this bombshell investigation: https://t.co/DNNN3erRMT
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) December 22, 2024
Let me show you how they're trying to spin it.
Politico claims that the investigation shows that "a campaign from a governing center-right party may have been…
However, according to the snoop.ro report, the Romanian tax authority discovered that the Liberals had paid for a social media campaign on TikTok through influencers and by promoting a specific hashtag that was eventually also “used to benefit Georgescu.” The PNL is a minor coalition partner in the outgoing government, and their candidate came in fifth place in the annulled first round of voting.
NATO is building the largest NATO military base in all of Europe in Romania, right on Romania's Black Sea coast pointing at Crimea, the crux point of contest in the Russia-Ukraine war.
— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) December 17, 2024
NATO feared the man who won Romania's now-canceled election would cut or shut the base down. pic.twitter.com/esiy9hSGvP
The PNL hired an external firm, Kensington Communication, to conduct the social media campaign.
“If the campaign was cloned or used to benefit one candidate or another, we ask the competent authorities to investigate and take the necessary legal measures,” said Kensington Communication.
The company also stated that the instructions they sent to influencers for the campaign were changed, according to Politico. However, the snoop.ro report claims that this was not the case.
The annulment of the first round of presidential elections in Romania has plunged the country into a deep political crisis, which many describe as a “burial of democracy.” Former Trump associate and internet censorship expert Mike Benz accused NATO of being behind the political crisis in Romania, where, he claims, “a coup was carried out to prevent the coming to power of a candidate who opposes the establishment of a large NATO base on Romanian territory.”
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Izvor: Serbian Times, Foto: INQUAM Photos