On Friday, the Romanian Constitutional Court annulled the presidential elections two days before the second round.
This is the latest twist in a chaotic process troubled by suspicions of Russian interference in favour of the far-right candidate Calin Georgescu in the first round of the vote, after he won a shock victory last month.
The court decided to "cancel the entire election" in order to "ensure its validity and legality". It called for "the entire electoral process" to be restarted, according to a statement.
"The government will set a new date’ at a later date, said the Court, which had validated the results earlier in the week after a recount of the first-round votes concluded that there had been no fraud.
In the meantime, however, the authorities have declassified intelligence documents supporting accusations of TikTok's ‘massive’ role in the campaign, with Russia in their sights.
In the first round, nationalist candidate Calin Georgescu surprisingly came out on top, sweeping aside the favourites in the ranks of the governing parties.
A critic of the EU and NATO, the 62-year-old former senior civil servant once again declared in the media on Friday that he was in favour of a total halt to military aid to neighbouring Ukraine.
While he has in the past expressed his admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, he has recently avoided taking a clear position, saying only that he is ‘pro-Romanian’.
Coming out of nowhere after a viral campaign on TikTok, he was to face the pro-European centrist Elena Lasconi, who also proclaimed herself to be "anti-system" and who was rising in the polls.
She "strongly condemned the illegal decision of a Romanian state flouting democracy" and "leading the country into anarchy, saying in a video that the vote should have taken place."
The leader of the main far-right party AUR, George Simion, denounced a "politically motivated" decision, "annulling the will of the Romanian people", while calling on his supporters to calm down, because "the system must fall democratically".
According to political scientist Costin Ciobanu, this "historic and unprecedented" annulment will "polarise" society even further and "raises serious questions about the solidity of the institutions."
Social Democrat Prime Minister Marcel Ciolanu, the big loser in the first round, hailed on Facebook the "only good solution," following the declassification of intelligence documents on Wednesday which exposed a result "distorted by Russian intervention."
