Romanian election marathon gives birth to new trends

New and old trends

The decision of the Constitutional Court of Romania to annul the voting results of the first round of the presidential election and to call new elections was a bid for the birth of a new political trend, generally speaking, not previously characteristic of Europe. Of course, we can plunge into history and remember the Estonian Constituent Assembly elections in 1918. From closer in time – 20 years ago, on December 3, 2004, the Supreme Court of Ukraine invalidated the results of the second round of the presidential election and ordered a repeat vote.  In the 2016 Austrian presidential election, the results of the second round were canceled, and a new second round was held six months later.

In the majority of cases, the annulment of the voting results by the court is more typical for the countries of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Now, as we see, a similar story has been repeated this time in Romania. This is a kind of “correction” of democracy by means of a court decision.  Only time will tell whether it will take the form of a stable European trend, when the local establishment, under the slogan of democracy protection, removes not one but two undesirable candidates from the “run”, one of whom is considered “pro-European”. Although the trend makes one wonder in what direction Europe is moving and whether its final democratic sunset has not come.

For now, returning to Romania, we see that the main beneficiary of the Constitutional Court’s decision is the Romanian power mainstream. The incumbent President Klaus Iohanis remains in office until his successor is chosen. Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, who did not make it to the second round, gets a chance to run for president again. By the way, he is almost the only Romanian politician who welcomed with enthusiasm the news from the Constitutional Court and called the cancelation of the elections “the only correct decision”.  The date of the “first round 2.0” will be known when the government announces it. And for that it must be formed by a new coalition, with which there will be certain difficulties after depriving the USR representative Elena Laskoni of the chances of victory. In addition, the results of the December 1 parliamentary elections may also be on hold. So far, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau has rejected an appeal by one of the parties that failed to pass the electoral threshold to annul the results of the parliamentary elections because the far-right Party of Young People (POT) was also supported by Russia. But who knows what results and consequences the Pandora’s Box opened in Romania will lead to. 

However, the first round of presidential and parliamentary elections in Romania recorded two other trends that have recently become characteristic of the entire European political landscape. On the one hand, it is the growing popularity of right-populist parties, and on the other hand, it is the consolidation of traditional political forces to prevent the extreme right from coming to power. The first trend was reinforced by the triumphant victory of Calin Georgescu in the first round of the presidential elections and the success of the extreme right-wing parties AUR, SOS Romania, Party of Young People, which won a combined 32% of the votes in the December 1 parliamentary elections. The second trend was the formation of a “sanitary” cordon, which the mainstream parties arranged for the non-systemic candidate Calin Georgescu.

The effect of a bomb going off

The electoral marathon in Romania began on November 24, when the first round of the presidential election took place. The increased interest in them was not least due to the powers that the head of state has.  According to the constitution, he proposes candidates for prime minister and appoints the government, then participates in its meetings, can dissolve parliament (after consultation with representatives of both chambers and leaders of parliamentary groups), has the right to announce the mobilization of the armed forces, as well as to declare a state of emergency or martial law.

The first-round victory of far-right politician Calin Georgescu, who ran as an independent candidate and was considered an outright loser in the campaign a month ago, has had a bombshell effect in Romania.

Calin Georgescu, 62, has been a university professor for many years and has devoted about a decade to working in various UN structures on sustainable development issues. Until 2022, he was a member of the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) and was even considered as a candidate for prime minister from this political force. That is, Mr. Georgescu was not a newcomer to politics, but it was still impossible to call him a politician especially known to the general public, especially outside the country. Back in October, Calin Georgescu’s name was not even listed in the polls – the Inscop agency, for example, included him in the “others” column with less than 0.4% of support. In November, he was in sixth place in some ratings with 5.4% of support.

However, according to the results of counting the overwhelming majority of ballots cast in the first round of Romania’s November 24 presidential election, Calin Georgescu came in first. He won 22.9% of the vote, while the leader of the Union for the Salvation of Romania, Elena Lasconi, received just over 19% of the vote. The incumbent Prime Minister and leader of the Social Democratic Party, Marcel Ciolacu, who was considered, as they say, yesterday almost unquestionable favorite of the race, was satisfied with only the third line (about 19%). Finally, the one who was confidently predicted to come in second place and advance to the second round – AUR leader George Simion – finished fourth with about 14% of votes.

“Phenomenon” Georgescu

In many ways, the unexpected success of the far-right Georgescu was not so much related to his ideas as to the general disillusionment of voters with all other presidential candidates and the fatigue of Romanian society with the policies of its ruling class. During the campaign, the country’s leading politicians – Marcel Ciolacu (Social Democratic Party), Nicolae Ciuche (National Liberal Party), Mircea Gioane (former NATO deputy secretary general), Elena Lasconi (Union for the Salvation of Romania), and George Simion (Alliance for the Unification of Romanians) – relentlessly criticized each other, discrediting both the others and themselves. Meanwhile, the voters formed the opinion that these people were not capable and should not lead the state. 

In addition, dissatisfaction with the EU policy was superimposed on distrust of the ruling elite. Although Romania has been a member of the EU since 2007, almost 20% of the country’s citizens still live below the poverty line. The outflow of young people to Western European countries continues. Many Romanian experts were recently angered by the fact that the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, when selecting candidates for membership in this body, defiantly demanded from Bucharest a female candidate in order to comply with the gender quota. As an advocate of conservative values and a defender of national sovereignty (“sovereigntist”), Calin Georgescu found himself in a trend of support for right-wing and far-right sentiments characteristic of a number of Western countries, associated with the lack of prospects for a noticeable improvement in life under the rule of “progressive-globalists”. 

Like several other leading right-wing radicals in Europe, including France’s Jordan Bardella and Britain’s Nigel Farage, Georgescu has gained a massive following on social media, earning him the nickname the TikTok candidate. In the last week before the first round of voting, Calin Georgescu gained 30 thousand new followers, and the number of views of the video of his candidacy exceeded 800 thousand. The rise in popularity occurred after the Romanian segment of TikTok (there are 8.9 million registered users of this social network in the country of 19 million) was flooded with tags related to the candidacy of the non-systemic politician. It also drew attention to the fact that in the Romanian diaspora, which lives mainly in EU countries and the UK, the Eurosceptic Georgescu also took the first place.

However, whatever TikTok’s capabilities, they alone could hardly have ensured Georgescu’s victory in the first round and the growing popularity of far-right parliamentary parties. The Romanian elections only once again highlighted the increasing polarization of society and the rise of populist movements – a pan-European trend of recent years. Romania, like a number of other EU countries, is going through an economic crisis. Voters are unhappy with high inflation, complain of “entrenched” corruption and are convinced that the government has “abandoned” them. All this has created fertile ground for protest voting and support for populist forces.

Georgescu’s election campaign was based on a “sovereigntist” agenda. The politician called for reducing Romania’s dependence on imports, supporting farmers and increasing domestic production of food and energy. In an interview, Calin Georgescu called the NATO missile defense shield in the Romanian town of Deveselu a “disgrace of diplomacy,” saying that the North Atlantic Alliance would not defend any of its members in the event of a Russian attack. He also criticized U.S. military aid to Ukraine and publicly expressed admiration for Hungary and its prime minister, Viktor Orban, for their ability to negotiate internationally and defend national interests. Romanian media labeled him a pro-Russian candidate for his attitude toward Russia and Vladimir Putin. 

Indeed, Calin Georgescu spoke of his affinity for Russian culture and praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as a man who loves his country. “This is a man who, from my point of view, is very knowledgeable and skilled in diplomacy and is surrounded by very good professionals,” he also said. When the voting results were finalized, many Western media outlets came out with stories calling Georgescu a “pro-Putin politician”. At the same time, Georgescu became famous for his assessments of the activities of Romanian dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu, who ruled the country in 1940-1944 – in January 2022, Georgescu called him and his supporters heroes, thanks to whom “the national history lived”. The country’s Prosecutor General’s Office then opened a criminal case against Georgescu, accusing him of glorifying the perpetrators of genocide. Since then, however, there have been no public reports on the progress of that investigation; the case does not appear to have been pursued. 

Georgescu’s non-systematic nature, his Euroskepticism and his typical right-wing populist views have earned him another nickname – the Romanian Trump. Especially since Donald Trump himself ran an incredible presidential campaign and won the election convincingly, which for Georgescu was the perfect backdrop for his triumph in the first round.

However, in the West, Georgescu’s victory in the first round was met with dismay. Costin Ciobanu, a researcher at Aarhus University in Denmark, told the Financial Times that the results of the first round of the presidential election in the republic were a “political earthquake,” noting that no one expected such an outcome. The Guardian also called the results of the first round “shocking.” Questioned by the publication, Sergiu Miscoiu, a professor of political science at Babes-Boiai University in Romania, did not rule out Russian interference in the electoral process. “Based on Georgescu’s position on Ukraine and the discrepancies between the opinion polls and the actual results, we cannot rule it out,” the analyst stated.

On the other hand, former Moldovan President Igor Dodon, commenting on the results of the first round of elections in Romania, compared them with the situation in his country. “In Romania, the idea of national interest – sovereignty, protection of the economy, traditions and Christian values – came first. The same thing is happening in Moldova. We saw the first signal in the presidential elections, when the candidate nominated by the socialists won the country. And when the country’s citizens rejected a pro-European referendum,” Dodon wrote on social media.

By the way, in Moldova itself, only 3.11% of votes were cast for Calin Georgescu, although the Romanian diaspora as a whole gave him 43.16% of votes. The favorite in Moldova, where many citizens with Romanian passports live, was Elena Lasconi, who came second in the first round, with 56% of votes. 

The results of the presidential election were not ignored in Russia either. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, when asked by journalists whether the results of the vote were a surprise for the Kremlin and how they assessed Mr. Georgescu’s prospects of maintaining his advantage in the second round of the election, said: “We cannot say that we are so familiar with the worldview of this candidate as far as relations with our side are concerned. And immediately added that so far Moscow only understands that “the current Romanian leadership is not a country friendly to us.” Then Russian President Vladimir Putin himself added his ironic commentary, saying that “… the authorities did not like one candidate and decided to recount the votes”. 

Putin’s irony was related to the decision of the Romanian Constitutional Court, which on November 28 was supposed to validate the election results, but eventually ruled to recount the ballots and postponed the decision to confirm the election results. The two eliminated candidates, Cristian Terheş from the Romanian National Conservative Party (1.04% of votes) and Sebastian Popescu from New Romania (0.16%), appealed to the Constitutional Court to annul the results of the first round. The latter claimed that the winner of the first round reported no expenses in his campaign finance report, although he was active on social networks (mainly on TikTok), which requires financial support. Terheş stated that members of the Union for the Salvation of Romania carried out electoral propaganda while the voting was already underway. The CC decided to continue discussing Terheş’s appeal on November 29 and rejected Popescu’s appeal because he submitted it “too late”.

On November 9, the Constitutional Court of Romania held a second session, following which a decision on the annulment of the results of the first round was expected. However, in the end, the CC postponed the decision until December 2. 

The first-round winners and their allies accused Romania’s ruling parties – the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the center-right National Liberal Party (PNL) – of using the court to try to hold on to power. It was the first time an SDP candidate failed to reach the second round since the country rid itself of communism 35 years ago. Anger at the idea of a mid- or late-December runoff election was an unexpected unifying factor between the far right and reformist critics of the “old guard.”

As a result, after the results of the parliamentary elections made it clear that the extreme right-wing forces would not be able to gain a majority in parliament and form a government, the CC on December 2 left the results of the first round unchanged.

On such a scandalous note, the main political forces went to the parliamentary elections, which were held in Romania on December 1. 

A rematch

Although Romania is a presidential-parliamentary republic, the parliament has a significant influence on the political course of the country. Moreover, after 2020, the right to call parliamentary elections in Romania was transferred to the parliament, and the winning party gets the right to propose the candidacy of the country’s prime minister. 

The Romanian Parliament consists of two chambers, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. Its term of office is four years. This year 330 people are elected to the Chamber of Deputies. Romania has a proportional electoral system, the country is divided into 43 multi-member electoral districts: they are formed within the administrative-territorial boundaries of 42 districts of the country (provinces), including the capital (Bucharest). There is also one multi-mandate constituency to ensure representation of the interests of foreign Romanian voters. 

Polls on the eve of the parliamentary elections predicted victory for the far-right Alliance for the Unification of Romanians (AUR) led by George Simion. A poll conducted by the AtlasIntel polling company between November 26 and 28 gave AUR 22%. PSD came second with 21.4%, followed by Lasconi’s Union for the Salvation of Romania (17.5%) and the National Liberal Party (13.4%).

In addition, as the Romanian information resource Romania Insider noted, the other radical parties, SOS Romania and the Party of Young People (POT), have also improved their results and may overcome the five-percent barrier (so far, each is predicted at about 4.6%). In such a scenario, there could be a chance to form an extreme right-wing nationalist coalition led by AUR, which would control about 30% of the parliament.

Despite its colorful history of corruption scandals, Romania has long been considered a reliable NATO ally in Eastern Europe and a country that has largely played by EU rules in the region. This track record sets it apart from other countries in the region, such as Hungary, Slovakia, and Bulgaria, which have consistently raised concerns about the rule of law and gravitated toward Russia. Many experts have noted that the situation could fundamentally change with an extreme right-wing victory. For example, AUR leader George Simion promised to take a tougher stance toward Brussels and protect Romania’s national interests – even if it means abandoning EU laws.  In the four years since the last parliamentary elections, AUR has doubled its electoral support. Once a marginal party that promoted anti-vaccine theories during the Covid-19 pandemic, with the onset of Russia’s full-scale aggression it has shifted to the Ukrainian agenda, declaring that the war is “not ours” and calling on the government to stop helping Kiev. 

If he wins, he has promised to join the growing chorus of far-right EU leaders, which would further shift the balance of power away from mainstream parties and toward centrist politics in the EU’s top decision-making body. The AUR party leader has also relentlessly emphasized that he considers Trump, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Polish far-right politician Jaroslaw Kaczynski as role models. Another unpleasant side of his rise to power for the EU could be the deterioration of Romania’s relations with Ukraine and Moldova, as Simion is currently banned from entering both countries. 

The AUR party leader himself believes that the ban is related to his pro-Romanian activities. However, not only Simion, but also his fellow party members succeeded in unionist rhetoric. One of AUR’s leaders, Claudio Tarziu, has announced territorial claims to the Ukrainian lands of Northern Bukovina, Transcarpathia, Bessarabia, and all of Moldova. “We will not be truly sovereign until we reintegrate the Romanian state within its natural borders. Bessarabia must go home. Northern Bukovina cannot be forgotten, southern Bessarabia, Hertza, Transcarpathia, everything that belonged and belongs to the Romanian nation must return to the borders of the state,” Tarziu said on the occasion of the Day of Unification of Principalities. As experts have noted, the România Mare project – that is, the maximum expansion of borders going back to the Romanian kingdom with Ukrainian Bukovina and the Republic of Moldova was buried back in the late 1990s. However, today it has been taken up by the far-right and is being played as an electoral card.

Simion also pledged to suspend military aid to Ukraine if elected and to support a peace deal brokered by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, even if it means Kiev makes territorial concessions.

Simion’s right-wing colleagues from SOS Romania were not far behind. These are splinters of AUR, who have formed their own political project. It is headed by Senator Diana Shoshoake, who has the reputation of being the “urban lunatic”. For all that, her eccentricity and super-radicalism are quite effective. It was her “fault” that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech in the Romanian parliament was canceled. Her anti-Ukrainian speeches were repeatedly heard from the parliamentary rostrum, which concerned the provision of military aid to Ukraine, support for its accession to the EU. She repeatedly shocked her colleagues and the public with her pro-Russian statements, one of which she ended with the phrase: “Glory to Moscow”.  Romania’s Constitutional Court barred Shoshoake from running for president, saying her anti-Semitic and pro-Russian views would jeopardize the country’s position in the EU and NATO. She was more than optimistic in her predictions for the outcome of her political force, saying that the SOS Romania party would prevail in the Dec. 1 parliamentary elections and win a parliamentary majority, and she would become prime minister.

It must be said that Romania’s mainstream parties took the far-right threat seriously, and Prime Minister Ciolacu called this election the most important in the last 35 years, noting that “things have become very fragile.” 

The country’s two main political forces, the Social Democratic Party and the National Liberal Party, once rivals, formed a government alliance to break the political deadlock following the 2020 parliamentary elections, when it was impossible to form a one-party government. Moreover, the two parties have taken to simply sharing power. PSD head Marcel Ciolacu became the head of the government, while the head of the National Liberal Party, Nicolai Ciuche, became the speaker of parliament. The Romanian press reacted vividly to the coalition of the two sworn enemies, accusing them of being driven by one desire – “…to establish their own rules, distribute resources among themselves – and live happily off the budget. Nepotism, not solidarity, is what will ensure its survival”. Despite economic problems and corruption scandals, both parties went to the European Parliament elections this year with a single list. At the time, party leaders once again tried to divide their spheres of influence: Cholaku wants to remain at the helm of the executive branch, while Chuke is seeking the presidency. However, life showed a different outcome. Both Cholake and Chuke took part in the presidential race, which almost caused the collapse of the government coalition. As a result, both candidates had a miserable ending, failing to make it to the second round of elections and leaving the party leaders’ chairs. However, Cholake prudently announced that he would remain at the helm of the party in the parliamentary elections. At the moment, the SDP political council has “persuaded” Cholaka to remain at the head of the party.  

It should be said that the key messages of the “old parties” were not distinguished neither by novelty nor by special ingenuity. They tried to consolidate the pro-European voters around them by harshly criticizing Calin Georgescu and Romania’s extreme right-wing parties for offering voters sovereignty while waving the Russian tricolor. As an alternative, representatives of pro-government parties offered voters European democratic values, NATO’s defense against the Russian threat, and European funds that would cover the shortfall in the state budget for salaries and pensions. 

The results of the parliamentary elections showed that, despite the growing popularity of extreme right-wing parties, pro-European and pro-NATO political forces managed to hold off the extreme right-wing parties to collect just over 50% of the popular vote.

Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu’s center-left Social Democratic Party (PSD) received 22.30 percent of the vote. The National Liberal Party came third with 14.28 percent, Elena Lasconi’s Union for the Salvation of Romanians (USR) 12.26 percent, and the Democratic Union of Hungarians of Romania 6.38 percent.

  The extreme right-wing parties won a total of 32% of the votes at the end of the elections. AUR – over 18%, SOS Romania – 7.76% and Party of Young People (POT) – 6.5%.

Thus, the pro-European political forces were able to take revenge for their defeat in the first round of the presidential election. If we look at the results of the elections through the prism of the past results of the mainstream parties, it turns out that they mostly lost their positions. The SDP’s own result is 6% less than in the last election in 2020, while their ruling coalition colleagues in the National Liberal Party (PLP) lost 10% of the vote. The percentages they lost went almost entirely to the new right-wing parties. 

The pro-European parties will now face the question of forming a coalition. The most likely government coalition would be an alliance of pro-Western parties – that is, a union of PSD, PNL and the center-right Union for the Salvation of Romania (USR). Theoretically, this would be possible, as such a coalition would have 52 percent of the seats in parliament. However, a problem may arise with the USR party, whose leader, Elena Lasconi, made it to the second round of the presidential election. The fact is that the Union for the Salvation of Romania positions itself as an anti-establishment and anti-corruption party and is very critical of the PSD and PNL governments, especially for their inaction in the fight against corruption. However, its desire to win the second round of the presidential election plus the victory of pro-European forces in the parliamentary elections pushed it to make a political deal with Ciolacu’s PSD: it helps him form a majority in parliament while he will support her for the presidency.

The fateful second round that didn’t happen

On the eve of the second round of the presidential election, pro-European parties formed a “cordon sanitaire” around Georgescu. This already happened in the French parliamentary elections, where the left, liberals and center-right united to prevent Marine Le Pen’s party from coming to power.

In Romania, the mainstream political forces united around Elena Lasconi to prevent Calin Georgescu from winning the second round of the presidential election. They tried to discredit Georgescu as much as possible. He was exposed as a “Kremlin candidate” and the second round was promoted as a referendum on Romania’s European future.  A few days before the election, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis agreed to declassify information from the intelligence services about Georgescu’s campaign. This was the main reason why the Constitutional Court annulled the results of the first round and announced a new presidential election.

It was about the reports presented at the last meeting of the country’s Supreme Defense Council by the Service of Information (SRI), the Foreign Intelligence Service (SIE) and the Ministry of Interior (MIA). According to the documents, Georgescu ran an active and even aggressive campaign on TikTok. The network associated with his campaign consisted of 25,000 accounts. Two weeks before the first round of elections, their activity increased dramatically. Bloggers were offered €1000 for posting one video in support of Georgescu. According to the intelligence service, TikTok user Bogdan Peshkir, who runs the account “bogpr”, was involved in the financing of Georgescu’s campaign. Between October 24 and November 24, he transferred $381 thousand to TikTok accounts that were involved in promoting Georgescu’s campaign. The Foreign Intelligence Service said Romania has been targeted by Russian hybrid operations, including cyberattacks, information leaks, sabotage and disinformation campaigns. According to the intelligence service, the Kremlin seeks to influence the mood of Romanian citizens in the context of the elections. Romania’s Prosecutor General’s Office has launched an investigation into Georgescu’s election campaign. Romanian law enforcers conducted three searches in the city of Brasov as part of cases of vote-buying, money laundering and computer fraud. “The searches were related to the possible involvement of a private individual in the illegal financing of the election campaign of a Romanian presidential candidate,” law enforcers said. 

At the same time, Lasconi and her team, under the slogan “God bless Romania in the EU and NATO,” consolidated around them liberals, center-left and even center-right.  The Party of Hungarians of Romania (UDMR), and the National Liberal Party (PNL, one of the two largest parties in Romania) expressed their support for Lasconi. She was also supported by the Social Democratic Party (PSD, Romania’s second largest party). After the first round of the election, former PSD leader and Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu maintained “neutrality” in the presidential race and suggested that voters decide for themselves who to vote for in the second round. Another former PSD leader and former Prime Minister Victor Ponta said he would not vote for Lasconi because she was not ready for such a responsible position. In addition, he believes that the PSD party environment is not in favor of a USR candidate at all.  However, four days before the election, Cholaku announced his full support for Laskoni.

Moreover, the Social Democratic Party, the National Liberal Party, Elena Lasconi’s reformist Union for the Salvation of Romania and the Hungarian minority party Democratic Union of Hungarians of Romania concluded a coalition agreement, the cement of which was the desire to prevent the extreme right from gaining power. But the main aim of this whole action of the diverse partners is to prevent Calin Georgescu from winning the second round of the presidential election.  “We have already begun to create a pro-European parliamentary and governmental majority that will support Mrs. Elena Lasconi in the vote on December 8,” – wrote in social networks the current Prime Minister of Romania and leader of the Social Democratic Party, Marcel Ciolacu, to whom the presidential candidate practically promised to retain the post of head of government in case of her victory.

A week before the voting day, fresh opinion polls were published: 42.2% of respondents were ready to give their vote to the candidate of the Union for the Salvation of Romania (USR) party, Elena Lasconi, and 57.8% to the independent candidate Calin Georgescu. However, another large-scale poll conducted in Romania predicted a victory already for Lasconi with a slim margin: 48.8% to 46.4%. In addition, Polymarket (a political betting platform that predicted Donald Trump’s victory in the United States) shows exactly Lasconi’s victory: 53% against 47%.  Laskoni was credited for her success as mayor of Kimpulunga. She was able to gain leadership in the party, strengthen its ranks and come second in the presidential elections after the failure of the Union for the Salvation of Romania in the local and European elections this spring. The nearly one million Moldovans with Romanian passports was seen as another major factor in her future success. Elena Lasconi was in Chisinau before the first round of the presidential election, meeting with journalists and civic activists, showing how important Moldova is to Romania. This brought her more than 45,000 Moldovan votes in the first round. Before the second round, Moldovan President Maia Sandu went to Bucharest to express her support for Lasconi, and Lasconi herself in a special address urged Moldovans to support Romania on its European path and promised to speed up the process of crossing the border between Moldova and Romania.

Calin Georgescu also paid special attention to the Moldovan electorate. He called Moldovans brothers and promised comprehensive support: “Moldovans will never be left alone”.

At the end of the campaign, Georgescu sought to strengthen his messages against NATO, the EU and the local establishment. In an interview with Reuters, he said that if elected head of state, he would oppose Bucharest’s military support for Kiev. Georgescu also intends to ban the export of Ukrainian grain through Romania, and said that it is not obliged to fulfill NATO commitments on defense spending. Also, Calin Georgescu said Romanian companies should have a controlling stake in any ventures involving foreign investors. He criticized the past privatization of state assets, especially in the energy sector. 

In another speech, Calin Georgescu also questioned the effectiveness of EU funding. “Have European funds helped us? Are we dependent on them? Can’t our country produce anything? Don’t we have other investors? Let me tell you, there is money everywhere in this world,” the politician said. In a recent interview with Politico, Georgescu said he fully supports Trump as a role model.  “It’s about a vision – that’s what I want to put on record – a vision of the world and a vision that America, first of all Romania, should be first,” Georgescu said. 

All these messages maximally consolidated the extreme right around the figure of Romanian Trump. And the right-wing populists themselves felt much more confident after the parliamentary elections. AUR leader Giorgi Simion, the head of the SOS Romania party Diana Shoshoake, and representatives of another extreme right-wing party, the Party of Young People, declared their support for Georgescu. However, not only the extreme rightists could support Calin Georgescu. There was a high probability that a part of the electorate of the most organized political force, the Social Democrats, which had no sympathy for Lasconi, could vote for him.  Georgescu also counted on the support of the Romanian diaspora, which, apart from Moldova, supported him in the first round. In short, the parties are frozen in anticipation of the second round of the presidential election, which is likely to be the most tense in the country in decades. 

However, the Constitutional Court’s decision to annul the results of the first round “defused” the tension and led to the fact that now all electoral procedures will start from the beginning. According to Daniel Fenechiu, a senator from the ruling coalition’s National Liberal Party (PNL), a second first round of voting may not take place until March 2025.

Nevertheless, Calin Georgescu went to the building in the commune of Mogoshoaiai, where the polling station for the presidential election was to be opened, on the morning of December 8, as he had announced. He disagreed with the position of the Romanian media who called his statement a “disguised call for protests” and emphasized that his act was symbolic. “I came here in the name of democracy. This is only a symbolic act, I am not calling anyone to anything.  Today, as you know, the second round of the presidential election was supposed to take place. It was canceled along with democracy. Today is Constitution Day, but nothing in Romania is in line with the Constitution anymore,” Georgescu said. The leader of the far-right AUR party, Giorgi Simion, also lit candles with his supporters on the day when the presidential election was to be held and declared a minute of silence for the “dead” democracy in Romania.  

The “heart of democracy” in the United States also reacted to the decision of the Constitutional Court of Romania. The eldest son of the president-elect Donald Trump – Jr. criticized its decision: “Another Soros-Marxist attempt to falsify the results and deny the will of the people. She will lose and they know it,” he wrote on social network (X). American billionaire Ilon Musk also made his mark there, leaving a short comment on the news about the Constitutional Court’s decision: “What the hell?”.

It seems that the majority of voters in Romania probably had a similar reaction to the Constitutional Court’s decision. Nevertheless, it should be noted that for all the complexity and somewhere tragic nature of the Romanian electoral marathon, it recorded that Romania continued the pan-European trend of forming “sovereigntist” forces, which were supplemented, in addition to new parties, by a new face – Calin Georgescu. And the main political forces in the EU and NATO will have to take into account this new reality.