The Romanian elections were a debacle in many other ways. So far at least, our authorities have done nothing to actually arrest the fascist lunatic that almost won, nor to bring any concrete evidence that he did anything other than breaking campaign finance laws by paying for TikTok like any other influencer might while not declaring this money in his campaign fund disclosures.

Actually, they didn't even bring any evidence of that, except for the fact that he claims in official documents and public appearances that his campaign cost 0, which is such a bold faced lie that it barely needs dismissing.

But no, I don't share the court's apparent opinion that, but for TikTok, this lunatic wouldn't have won. All suggestions are that, will he be allowed to run again (which is theoretically the current status quo, him not having been put under any sort of judicial control!), he will win again, despite his vastly diminished TikTok presence. Turns out, to my great personal sadness, that many of my countrymen, idioticaly, actually liked the fascist and weren't (just) manipulated by TikTok.

No, it was the Romanian National Liberal Party that used TikTok for campaigning in the first place:

https://www.politico.eu/article/investigation-ties-romanian-...

The campaign was co-opted by trolls (could have been bored teenagers) to use the hash tag for their purposes.

The win of Georgescu seems organic, he is projected to have the same results in May:

https://www.politico.eu/article/romania-election-2025-hungar...

In the context of the EU it is in no way surprising that a "far-right" candidate gets 30% of the votes. Austria, France and the Netherlands were pioneers in 2000 already.

Germany's AfD had 12% after Merkel's immigration disaster and now was 21% (in polls) after the US has repeatedly used and insulted the EU in the past 4 years. In 2019 pro-US sentiment was deservedly at an all-time high in Germany, that is no longer the case.