Summary
Far-right populist Calin Georgescu led Romania’s presidential election with 22% of the vote, narrowly ahead of leftist Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu (21%), setting up a runoff on December 8.
Georgescu’s unexpected rise, driven by anti-establishment sentiment, has disrupted the political landscape.
His vague populist platform includes boosting local production and criticizing NATO. Analysts suggest his surge reflects voter dissatisfaction, with some suspecting potential Russian influence.
The election, marked by moderate turnout (52.4%), occurs amid economic challenges, high inflation, and tensions from Romania’s proximity to Ukraine’s war zone.
Western Europeans after repeatedly denying Romania entry to the Schengen zone: “why would anti-European politicians be popular there?”.
Ps. My argument works even with alleged Russian interference baked in. Austrian and Dutch intransigence create the fertile ground for Russian arguments to catch.
First off, Romania (and Bulgaria) are in Schengen, sea and air borders are already open and land borders will be sometime earlyish next year, secondly, their qualm isn’t with the rest of Europe but Austria, Austria, and Austria alone, where politicians were playing the whole thing for xenophobia points instead of sticking to the rules. Romania has never been confused about who was to blame, they recalled their ambassador, Romanian companies were boycotting Austria, the whole shebang. The rest of the EU had their back, and Austria caved. Well, at least in the concrete matter I doubt it made a dent in their xenophobia.
East European country has it’s elections meddled with by Russia? Yes, very shocking.
Who could have expected that?
Famously US elections have never been interfered with by Russia
I think Russian influence excuse is overblown. It’s the economy, inflation has been a world wide phenomenon. Everyone is pissed about inflation and how it has affected them. Basic economics and how everything in an economy usually has a six month to a year lag is something that seems to be a hard for people to grasp so the knee jerk is to blame the party in power.
Everyone is pissed because the ultra rich are taking more than their share. That’s the catalyst.
But “we should ally ourselves with Russia” is pure propaganda. There’s no solution to be had there, just as Trump isn’t the solution in the US.
it might seem that way, but is there some proof for it?
Even people saying they liked Trump are voting against Calin Georgescu and hoping he loses
Just my two cents, as a Romanian (or half Romanian, half German) living abroad, with family members that voted for this far-right candidate, both in Romania and from abroad:
Romania suffers from the same problem many other European countries suffer from. The status quo parties haven’t come to the realization that they need to change their course if they want to stay relevant, either willingly, because changing political course would hurt their financial interests, or unwillingly, because they’re too dense to understand what the people want.
The economic situation is dire. Over 3 million Romanians (out of ~20 million) live abroad, most of them due to the dire economic situation at home (as is the case with a big chunk of my own family). These are not doctors, engineers, or other people with a ton of degrees hanging on their walls, but normal laborers that moved abroad in the pursuit of a better life. They often get exploited and discriminated, due to their lack of education, language skills, and other factors. One question I get asked very often about by my relatives in Romania is “but when are you moving back home?” and “but aren’t the people there really shitty to you?”. Most of these people dream about saving enough money so they can move back “home” (which in turn is also quite hard given the dire economic situation they face and the very insignificant amounts of money they can save in western Europe).
The status quo parties keep failing to deliver on their promises, with one corruption scandal after the other. The improvements are moving very, very slowly, and people are getting fed up. I’ll quote Milton Friedman on this one (someone that I, as a communist, very often do not agree with):
“Only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.”
People are looking for alternatives, and the only alternatives lying around are far-right reactionaries, often because their campaigns are getting funded by Moscow, capitalist think tanks, and other actors that want to change the course of our politics.
The classical parties have failed the average person. Doing a Kamala and just campaigning on keeping the status quo won’t win you an election there, because the status quo sucks.
The capital has exploited and hollowed out the individual, and now the individual is striking back by choosing the most reactionary “opposition” candidate they can put their stamp on.
The anti-EU (and anti-NATO since they’re very closely associated) rhetoric is only helped by the huge wave of xenophobia these people face from foreigners either while abroad or online. We know that we don’t have the best reputation abroad, and this insecurity is well drilled into our heads.
Now to get back to Georgescu, I won’t deny it that it is indeed very weird how this guy appeared out of nowhere. I’m fairly sure Moscow had its money in there somewhere, but that only launched him into the public consciousness. The reason people voted for him isn’t because he got big on TikTok, but because he presented himself as an outsider and he spoke directly to people’s insecurities and anger.
Romania sadly has no leftist parties, nor any leftist candidates. The only “leftists” are somewhat progressive neoliberals that fight to keep the status quo alive (or sometimes make it even worse with their proposed austerity measures). That obviously doesn’t speak to the average person’s insecurities. That’s how this guy got so big, and that’s how many more after him will get big if no candidate with actual solutions shows up.
Where are all the people here that aren’t from the US spewing paragraph after paragraph about the US elections with thier BS ?
Does this election not matter?
But US politics are universal, don’t you know?
Romanians have been dejected about politics for a very long time and in very dangerous ways. The entire “they are all the same” narrative has been so pervasive and the attempts at centrist liberal reform parties so unsuccessful that the populist right having a shot is not surprising. If anything it feels oddly overdue.
It’s still bad, though, but I am very nervous at a scenario where options are reduced to actively supporting the PSD status quo or pro-Russian far right populism. If you’ve heard younger Romanian men talk about politics for the past decade that doesn’t bode well long term.
The reality is, that for many people in many countries (like me here in Germany) the US elections have an actual impact. Tariffs, geopolitics, economy, that will impact me, but also people in Italy, Ukraine, Taiwan and Australia.
Romania? Well, to be honest I hear about that country maybe once a month and unless an absolute catastrophe is happening over there, the impact on me is practically nil.
Yeah, well, if you are German Romania is effectively your Eastern border, what with being the EU country closest to Russia, bordering Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova, with the larger Moldova territory extending into Romania itself and being currently a stated occupation objective of Putin.
So… maybe it’s time to take the blinders off, stop caring so much about transatlantic politics out of sheer cultural imperialism and start caring a bit about your own territorial integrity. Just as a smidge of friendly advice.
I think you’re overestimating the importance of Romania.
A Russia friendly president in power has very negative implications, yes, but that’s exactly why this is in the news right now.
I’ll be blunt, but from a German perspective, Romania is a source of cheap labor and maybe a logistics hub towards Ukraine. That’s it. Unless it falls to Russia or starts a war itself, its internal politics don’t really matter here.
Well expect a huge influx of cheap labor in the coming decades when the far right starts winning elections over there. If you think that won’t affect the German labor and housing market in a negative way then you are just naive.
Are you misinterpreting me on purpose?
What exactly do you think “geopolitics” mean? Discussing paper thickness of maps?
So a country’s internal politics don’t matter unless they fall to Russia - that’s what you said, right?
But wouldn’t you agree that the country’s internal politics are what decides if it falls to Russia or not? If education is not a subject they invest in, if its population isn’t happy with the status quo, if they exhibit corruption, if their healthcare system is so bad that the middle class emigrates and leaves behind only the oligarchs and the poor, if their justice system doesn’t work and they don’t feel safe… All these internal politics have a huge impact on if a country can be influenced by Russia or any other nefarious agent.
I don’t get what you’re saying. You keep saying “yeah but we don’t care about X”, while X seems to be the direct cause of some of your problems that you DO care about. Are you trying to say Romania should take care of its shit internally so we don’t have to deal with it, and not let it grow to the point where it’s a problem for the rest of the EU?
Man, the EU is so boned.
Look, it matters for the same reason Hungary should matter more to you than the US. For one, Hungary insists on giving visas to Russians, and the more Russia-aligned EU countries you get the worse your border security with Russia gets in that exact way. Get enough of them in there and it gets so much harder to enact Europe-wide legislation on security and international relations.
You perceive Romania as cheap labor and a military asset, I assure you both Russians and Romanians perceive it differently. I understand what your priorities are, I’m telling you they’re wrong, which is not surprising coming from central European arrogance but would be good to nudge back to reality before it’s entirely too late.
I know you’re exaggerating for effect, but I am not, it’s time to pay attention to Eastern Europe (as in, Eastern EU) and start to make plans to decouple from the US much more aggressively because they are definitely not going to be allies for the foreseeable future.
Hungary does matter, Orban is in the news pretty much every week.
I know you’re exaggerating for effect,
No, I’m not. But you seem to ignore what I wrote. As one of the dominos falling into russian hands it does matter, that’s what I wrote before. For everything else, it has no impact. You can find that stupid and arrogant as much as you want, but that’s the reality.
Apart from geopolitics, there is de facto no connection to Romania.
It’s literally your territory. Your political organization. You are a citizen of the EU just as they are. Their elections impact your organizations directly. They impact who writes your laws in Germany.
That’s not geopolitics, friend, that’s domestic politics for you. The fact that so many Europeans just can’t parse this but compulsively follow every detail of US politics is a disease. It’s the gangreous abscess of US cultural imperialism and it’s doing real damage.
Big echoes of the mid 2010s, having weird conversations with delusional Brits spouting EU misinformation with zero critical sense before Brexit. It’s terrifying.
I understand what your priorities are, I’m telling you they’re wrong, which is not surprising coming from central European arrogance but would be good to nudge back to reality before it’s entirely too late.
It would be preferable for Europe overall for Romania to be, say, not as corrupt, and consequently not as poor. It’d make Europe stronger. I am very much in favour of seeing Romania make huge strides in those kinds of regards.
But that’s a long-term thing, for the simple reason that Romania has neither the unity nor vision for huge steps as e.g. the Baltics took. That’s just me extrapolating the trajectory you’re currently on: Short-term Romania will be, comparatively, corrupt and poor and whether it’s currently taking one step back or two steps forwards has limited impact on, well, everything. We’re not going to lose sleep over it. If you are losing sleep over it, become a politician, rally your countrymen.
We’re going to cheer from the sidelines but Europe isn’t an empire, we won’t be ruling your country for you. And if you try to pull a Hungary we’ll extort the Romanian powers that be just like we did with Orban. As in, they will be running the country without EU funds.
it’s time to pay attention to Eastern Europe (as in, Eastern EU) and start to make plans to decouple from the US much more aggressively
Noone’s ignoring the east when it comes to the Russia question any more. As to decoupling the French are pretty busy getting everyone on board with it. Have you asked them whether they could share some nukes with you? That kind of thing would help stuff along. What doesn’t really help things along is buying F35s from the Yanks.
Also have you noticed that we’re both taking a not exactly pro-NATO stance here. It’s going to take a while before there’s a clear division between populism serving the “yeah Atlanticism really was a bad idea” vs. “Europe should be run from Moscow” lines, it’s too early for that, dust will have to settle first. Currently populists are still able to serve both positions simultaneously by being a bit fuzzy about their positions, what positions they actually hold, well, with populists you never know.
It would be preferable for Europe overall for Romania to be, say, not as corrupt, and consequently not as poor. It’d make Europe stronger.
Oh, agreed. And much as the EU has taken that position fairly actively, that’s ultimately an issue of internal Romanian politics and why it’s worth being at least vaguely aware of what they look like, at least around elections.
I’m not even sure that I’m not taking an atlanticist position here. At this point in the game I’m not even sure what that means anymore, because for the second time in a decade we’re in a scenario where the US isn’t “atlanticist” as a matter of policy. I don’t take issue with a defense pact among the surviving liberal democracies, it’s just hard to visualize what that looks like if the US is not on the list.
Short term it looks a lot like the EU, assuming their liberal and social democracies hold up. Longer term I have no idea. A larger thing involving parts of Asia and South America but not the US and Israel? I certainly hope that set of alignments isn’t put to the test militarily, but who the hell even knows anymore.
Oh, and for the record, I am not Romanian myself and, at least as far as civil society goes, I’d dispute that the East isn’t being ignored, beyond using Orban as a culture wars icon.
It’s not like Romania has that “bomb the s**t out of them” carefree attitude.
You mean ML? Well, they got laid off now that trump won.
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It’s the first round, unlike the US there’s a second round if no one gets 50% of the popular vote. Georgescu got 22.7%. The expectation is that Ciolacu will easily win the 2nd round.
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Romania is a semi-presidential republic, with a mostly cerimonial president, and as such the president doesn’t have the power to rule by decree like in the US. So even if won it would be bad, but mostly symbolic.
The problem is that in a few weeks there’s also the parliamentary elections and there’ll be a push for the extremist parties which could help Georgescu. And I wouldn’t be that sure that Ciolacu would win easily in the second round.
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I’m confused, what are you even asking for?
Honestly im surprised so many people understood it, the way I worded it.
I was asking where are all the people that are not from Romania, but want to tell Romanians about thier election and how to vote in it.
Does this election not matter?
Briefly? No.
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This is the first round of elections. It’s not a FPTP system. Yes, he has a good shot at winning. But now he has to earn the votes which went to the “third party”, so to speak. Which is difficult for both of the current candidates.
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Romania’s president has limited power and responsibilities. He’s there as a a dignitary and usually handles foreign affairs more than internal ones. He’s also powerless - the government and the parliament are where the power is.
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Both these people are corrupt fucks. There is no winning this election. Yes, one’s worse than the other. I’d struggle to say which, although the pro-russian seems to be just a tad more evil.
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Human nature. Sure, the guy is pro Russia. Great. But how much time will he have to actually bring Romania closer to Russia if he has to split that time between trying to get the country out of NATO and trying to steal enough to retire comfortably? He won’t get anything done, he’s too greedy for it.
Edit: Seems like the number 2 spot in the election may be taken by a less corrupt candidate than initially thought - this invalidates my 3rd point a bit. I stand by the rest though.
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A very bizarre rise in the polls indeed. A mere two weeks ago he was polling at barely 2%, in the exit poll he came third and instead he’s first. People expected Simion to be the far-right candidate but he was well off.
Ciolacu still has the best cards, ahead in every poll in 1v1 matchups (and his lead mostly grew over time). But as far as I can tell there hasn’t even been a poll of just Ciolacu vs Georgescu, because nobody expected him to get remotely close to qualifying for the second round.
Hopefully Ciolacu manages to win regardless.
EDIT: Lasconi is the second candidate, she beat Ciolacu by just 2700 votes. She is also pro-EU and pro-Ukraine, so foreign policy-wise they’re not much different it seems. Good luck Lasconi!
Exit polls had initially showed showed Ciolacu with 25% of the vote
Down to 19.16. Six percent is a lot but can be explained by the locations where exit polls were not voting, in comparison with the rest of the country, as they usually do, so the extrapolation from the sample to the whole country didn’t work out. If this was “exit polls differ from the vote count in one locale” then that’d be a hell of a red flag but on a whole-country level it might mean nothing more than pollsters having to adjust their models.
Also… ok, looking at previous poll vs. election results I don’t think Romanian pollsters are good at being accurate in the first place. If you look at the 2014 elections the polls vs. results situation between Ponta and Iohannis is literally flipped. 45/55 vs. 55/45.
