The 62-year-old far-right Romanian presidential candidate Georgescu created a mass following on social media, with some 3.8 million likes on TikTok and 298,000 followers.
LONDON: You could hear the sounds of jaws dropping in the European corridors of power last Sunday when the startling result of the first round of Romania’s presidential election was announced. Defying all opinion poll projections the far-right candidate, Calin Georgescu, topped the first round having ran on an explicitly anti-NATO, anti-EU and anti-Ukrainian platform. The strong showing of Georgescu, who has no party of his own and campaigned largely on the social media platform TikTok, was without precedent since Romania shed communism in 1989. Even more surprising was that Georgescu polled only around 5 percent in the run-up to the election, having barely registered in earlier polls.
Observers were astonished when the leaders of the two largest parties, the leftish Social Democrats and centre-right Liberals, currently in a coalition government, were eliminated in the first round as voters shunned established parties. Romania is a member of both the European Union and NATO, and with parliamentary elections today and the second round of the presidential election on 8 December, the voters’ choice could have a profound effect not only on the future of Romania but, critically, even the future of Europe and the North Atlantic Alliance.
A strategically-placed nation of 19 million people, the largest country in south-eastern Europe, Romania borders Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to the east, and shares a 400 mile border with Ukraine. Until now, Romania has played a supportive role in the West’s backing for Ukraine as it holds out against the forces of Russia’s Vladimir Putin in its fight to retain its freedom. The opening of the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanta gave Ukraine a vital route to ship its grain exports out and receive military supplies in. The war has also increased the importance of the Mihail Kogalniceanu air base on the Black Sea, which is on course to become NATO’s largest. All this could change if Calin Georgescu is elected president next week. He has already described the US ballistic missile defence system based at the Deveselu military facility in southern Romania as a “matter of national shame”
Like many other leading right-wing radicals in Europe, the 62-year-old Georgescu created a mass following on social media, with some 3.8 million likes on TikTok and 298,000 followers. As he mounted his campaign, accounts with bot-like behaviour became highly active in comments on YouTube, Facebook and TikTok. Clips of him flipping opponents in judo, emulating his idol Vladimir Putin, went viral, as did videos of him riding a white horse dressed in traditional Romanian attire.
But set aside the image manipulation, what Georgescu did brilliantly was to directly address the concerns of the ordinary Romanians, which is why he won the first round in the election. Unlike the other candidates, he was bold enough to establish the link between the continuance of war on its borders with Romania’s economic hardships. Inflation in Romania is the highest in the European Union, although it has fallen from a peak of nearly 17 percent two years ago to around 5 percent today.
A soil scientist, Georgescu spent years working for the Environment Ministry and the United Nations Development Programme, fighting waste dumping and water pollution. His 17-page manifesto is titled “Food, Water, Energy: A return to the roots of the Romanian Nation”, and serves up a sugary hit of utopian, feel-good measures for rural areas. In a country where farmers make up 23 percent of the labour force and 18 percent of the population—by far the most of any EU state—Georgescu’s agri-food policies are crucial. Romania’s farmers have had a particularly hard time of late, not only because of an unprecedented draught this summer, but also because of cheap Ukrainian grain coming through Constanta.
A key part of Georgescu’s plan is to create a society “based on small-scale organic agriculture, Christian values and national sovereignty.” Descended from a long line of Orthodox priests, Georgescu has taken care to side with the Church against the corrupting force of the West. Romania is one of the most religious countries in Europe, and although its Orthodox Church has supported Ukraine officially, it is resolutely anti-western. This aligns with Georgescu’s message. Central to his appeal is the promise to “restore Romania’s dignity” and end subservience to the international organisations it belongs to, including NATO and the EU.
In many ways, the ultra-nationalist Georgescu fits the mould of the radical right-wing populists in 2024. He speaks plainly, shuns Western orthodoxy, is loathed by the mainstream media, and has sounded more friendly toward Russia.
Among Europe’s former Communist States, Romania has historically been one of the most sceptical toward Moscow, but Georgescu’s enthusiasm for Vladimir Putin seems not to have cost him in the polls. “Putin shows he loves his country”, Georgescu once said, adding that “Romania could do with some Russian wisdom”.
Comments like this are triggering genuine fears among other EU and NATO members that Moscow may be trying to draw Romania into its camp. Siegfried Muresan, a conservative Romanian law-maker in the European Parliament is convinced that “the result of this silent yet extremist, pro-Russian candidate is part of Russia’s hybrid war against European democracy.”
He drew attention to the repeated warnings of neighbouring Moldova’s pro-EU President Maia Sandu about Russian efforts to sway elections in her country towards pro-Moscow candidates.
Meanwhile, the leaders of Hungary and Slovakia, both in the EU, already espouse pro-Russian views. They could soon be joined by Czechia, if ex-Prime Minister Andrej Babis wins the parliamentary elections due next year. “If you follow what the Russians do in this region, you know that Romania is super-important for them”, Milan Nic, an analyst at the German Council on Foreign Relations told Politico last week. “The Russian plan is to cut Romania off from the Black Sea – it’s the usual Russian playbook”, he added.
This could only happen, of course, if the far-right Georgescu wins the final round of the presidential election next week. Already the political parties are lining up for and against him. Georgescu is a former member of hard- right opposition Alliance for Uniting Romanians, which immediately endorsed him. A separate far-right party, SOS Romania, known for praising anti-Semitic and fascist leaders from Romania’s 1930s and 1940s as national heroes and martyrs, also threw its support behind Georgescu, now standing as an Independent. Analysts say that hard-right groupings in today’s parliamentary elections are likely to receive an electoral boost from Georgescu’s success, possibly achieving at least a third of parliamentary seats. Retaining control of parliament would be an important achievement for pro-Western forces to serve as a counterbalance to Georgescu should he become president, who would have the right to nominate the prime minister, conduct coalition talks and have the last word on security and foreign policy matters in this strategically vital country.
In the meantime, centre-right Elena Lasconi has emerged as Georgescu’s opponent next week. Lasconi is leader of the opposition Save Romania Union and is seen as the pro-EU option. The new head of the centre-right Liberal Party, Ilie Bolojan, has already committed his party’s support for her. The Social Democrats, whose leader Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu had been the presidential front-runner, announced that his party will make the decision after today’s parliamentary elections, but it will almost certainly decide to back Lasconi to encourage a united, anti-Georgescu pro-western front. A misogynistic Georgescu is scathing about Lasconi.
“A woman cannot be president”, he argues. “The woman has another role to fulfil in society. She wouldn’t be up to being president”, he said, echoing views expressed during the recent presidential election in the US. Romania has made rapid progress in recent decades since joining the European Union and under a President Georgescu this could come to a grinding halt as the country moves into the Moscow sphere of influence.
Currently the numbers suggest that he will lose and Vladimir Putin will not have a new judo partner. But never underestimate the power of social media, brilliantly exploited by Georgescu. We shall soon know. TikTok.
John Dobson is a former British diplomat, who also worked in UK Prime Minister John Major’s office between 1995 and 1998. He is currently a visiting fellow at the University of Plymouth.