Last year’s presidential election was controversially canceled after what authorities deemed to be major Russian election interference in support of ultranationalist candidate Călin Georgescu. With Georgescu banned from standing in this month’s rerun, 38-year-old nationalist Simion is in the lead after the first round but polls have shown the gap to the moderate candidate Nicușor Dan narrowing significantly for Sunday’s decisive vote.
Elena Calistru, president and co-founder of local non-profit Funky Citizens, which monitors disinformation, said that the implementation of measures passed by the Romanian authorities is failing to meet the bar for electoral objectivity.
The criticisms center on emergency regulations rushed through in January that are considered too far-reaching and punitive, with regular voters unfairly considered as “political actors,” platforms required to take down content within five hours, and the risk of fines of more than half an average yearly salary. Over 4,000 content-removal orders have been given since April 4, most of them for TikTok.
Neither Romania’s Permanent Electoral Authority nor the Central Electoral Bureau responded to a request for comment.
“The authorities failed big time in November and they want tools to solve some of this behavior,” said Septimius Parvu, who coordinates the elections program at the local non-profit Expert Forum, which fights for transparency and accountability.
The Central Electoral Bureau “has to follow tens of complaints daily” and “some of their decisions are controversial, as the institution ordered that content which should not be labeled as political advertising to be removed,” he said.
