A top Romanian court on Friday annulled the first round of the country's presidential election, days after allegations that Russia ran a co-ordinated online campaign to promote the far-right outsider who won the first round.

The Constitutional Court's unprecedented decision — which is final — came after President Klaus Iohannis declassified intelligence on Wednesday that alleged Russia ran a sprawling campaign comprising thousands of social media accounts to promote Calin Georgescu across platforms like TikTok and Telegram.

Despite being a huge outsider who declared zero campaign spending, Georgescu emerged as the frontrunner on Nov. 24.

He was due to face reformist Elena Lasconi of the Save Romania Union party in a runoff on Sunday. A new date will now be set to rerun the first round.

But Lasconi strongly condemned the court's decision, saying it was "illegal, immoral and crushes the very essence of democracy."

"We should have moved forward with the vote. We should have respected the will of the Romanian people. Whether we like it or not, from a legal and legitimate standpoint, nine million Romanian citizens, both in the country and the diaspora, expressed their preference for a particular candidate through their votes. We cannot ignore their will!" she said.

She said the issue of Russian interference should have been tackled after the election was completed.

The president serves a five-year term and has significant decision-making powers in areas such as national security, foreign policy and judicial appointments. Romania is a member of both the European Union and NATO.

Accounts activated in vote run-up, files suggest

The intelligence files were from the Romanian Intelligence Service, the Foreign Intelligence Service, the Special Telecommunication Service and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. 

The same court last week ordered a recount of the first-round votes, which added to the myriad controversies that have engulfed a chaotic election cycle.

Declassified files suggest a pro-Russia campaign used the messaging app Telegram to recruit thousands of TikTok users to promote Georgescu. Romania's intelligence services alleged one TikTok user paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to influencers on the platform to promote content about the candidate.

Some of the thousands of social media accounts used in the campaign were allegedly created years ago but were only activated in the weeks leading up to the first-round vote, the files indicated.

It is unclear from the intelligence release whether Georgescu was even aware of the alleged campaign, let alone that he assisted in it.

EU wants to hear from TikTok

The European Union said Friday it sent TikTok an urgent request for more information. The commission previously asked the Chinese-owned platform to retain all Romania election-related files and evidence.

"We are concerned about mounting indications of coordinated foreign online influence operation targeting ongoing Romanian elections, especially on TikTok," said Henna Virkkunen, the European Commission's executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, in a post on X.

TikTok has 24 hours to respond to the EU request, officials told a press briefing in Brussels.

Cristian Andrei, a political consultant based in Bucharest, said the court's decision amounts to a "crisis mode situation for the Romanian democracy."

"In light of the information about the external interference, the massive interference in elections, I think this was not normal but predictable, because it's not normal times at all. Romania is an uncharted territory," he told The Associated Press. "The problem is here, do we have the institutions to manage such an interference in the future?"

EU lawmakers last week urged a rerun of the parliamentary vote of Georgia's October election within a year, to be run by an independent election administration and undertaken with international supervision.

The Georgian president, who has a largely ceremonial role, has accused the ruling Georgia Dream party of rigging that election with the help of Russia, which previously ruled Georgia from Moscow when it was part of the Soviet Union.