Romanian president says elections were annulled due to "subtle and complex" foreign intervention

Speaking about the reasons that led to the annulment of the presidential elections in Romania, president Klaus Iohannis invoked a "subtle and complex" foreign intervention and admitted that there is not enough direct evidence to allow the country to name Russia as the origin of the intervention.

Asked about why the decision to scrap elections was taken so late, president Iohannis said it was nobody's fault because the intervention was "subtle and complex."

"I do not hold anyone responsible because the intervention was so subtle and complex that much of what happened was noticed after the first round. Some were noticed before. (...) Campaigns are frequent on social networks. (...) The Central Electoral Bureau called on TikTok to stop the campaign, so the campaign continued on Saturday and Sunday only for this candidate (e.n. Călin Georgescu). The network allowed itself to ignore it, and the Central Electoral Bureau had no solution. The foreign influence was found later, with significant support from strategic partners. That is why it took several days before it could be debated in the CSAT," Klaus Iohannis explained, quoted by Defenseromania.ro.

As regards the origin of the influence, president Iohannis admitted that there is no direct evidence tracing it to Russia, because of the complexity of cyberspace.

"We know what happened, but it is complicated to directly designate Russia. In cyberspace, it was very complicated to attribute blame for cyber attacks to Russia. But such attacks have such complexity, so it is clear that only state actors can carry out such actions, and in this case, it was Russia," explained Iohannis.

Romania's Constitutional Court, based on documents received by the National Security Council (CNAS) headed by president Iohannis from the intelligence services, scrapped the presidential elections on December 6 – two days before the runoff elections.

(Photo source: Presidency.ro)