Since this piece was published at 12.28pm on 6 December, Romania’s top court scrapped the presidential election results amid the Russian interference claims.
THE FIRST ROUND of Romania’s presidential election delivered a result that stunned domestic and international observers as it threatens the pro-democratic and pro-European trajectory it took since the fall of communism in 1989.
The first round of the election was won by Calin Georgescu, a largely unknown figure amongst the general public, who has publicly taken positions in which he praised Putin, eulogised Romania’s military regime that collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust, promotes conspiracies about viruses, vaccines and modern medicine, and challenges Romania’s pro-democratic and pro-European alliances.
While largely unknown to the general public, Calin Georgescu has convinced a section of the electorate through a coordinated, massive, targeted campaign on TikTok in a country with close to nine million users. Even more baffling is that he achieved this with no expenses (based on his own self-reporting) and he was largely missed by most polls measuring voting intentions.
This surprising result was possible due to a combination of immediate and cumulating factors that created the perfect scenario for an anti-system candidate to emerge victorious. Romania’s last decade has been characterised by a loss of trust in institutions and mainstream political parties on a background of corruption, patronage politics and nepotism. This is dangerous for a new democracy (such as Romania) as people are generally less supportive of democracy in these regimes. This is particularly important as democratic support is the glue that hold democracies together.
The grand governmental coalition between the social democrats and the liberals of recent years, supported by the current president, only led to societal frustration due to increased bureaucratisation, corruption and nepotism. The contrast between the lavish lifestyles of the politicians and the struggles with inflation, and increased living costs of the rest of society, has only exacerbated the grievances of the population.
Despite sustained economic growth since joining the EU in 2007 – Romania more than doubled its GDP/capita – the country suffered the highest level of emigration in the world (after Syria). Most of the individuals who emigrated did so due to the lack of economic prospects in Romania and increasing levels of corruption. Large parts of the diaspora work in jobs that require hard, unskilled manual labour (such as construction, warehouse, delivery, cleaning, etc.), live in crowded accommodation and mostly among their own co-nationals.
They are largely unintegrated in the societies they live in and long to return home someday, to a country that offers them economic opportunities and is characterised by working institutions and political stability.
Calin Georgescu was able to capitalise on these legitimate grievances of the diaspora (but not only), through a message that appealed to their nostalgia and longing for home despite offering few solutions or alternatives to the system. His message was delivered in highly produced short videos in which he promised a prosperous future for Romania which combined religious, mystical and economically dubious themes, but lacking in specific policy details.
The chronic underfunding and generally under-performing educational system of the last three decades has also created a public lacking the elementary critical thinking skills to process the largely phantasmagoric messages of Georgescu. The combination of highly produced videos, the targeting of users with political content, and endorsement by various TikTok influencers proved to be too much to digest critically for a public whose rates of functional illiteracy approach a staggering 50 percentage points.
The danger of democratic erosion, and even a potential collapse of the pro-European security architecture in Eastern Europe, has (unfortunately) become a real possibility with the advancement of Calin Georgescu in the second round. In his path, stands Elena Lasconi, a former news reporter and anchor, turned politician who made it to the second round by barely over 2,700 votes from the candidate in the 3rd place, the current Prime Minister and leader of the social democratic party. Ms. Lasconi is backed by most pro-democratic and pro-European political, and civil society actors and large parts of the public.
Yet her ability to contest the second round of the presidential election was in jeopardy due to the recent decision of the Constitutional Court to ask the full recount of over 9.4 million votes on alleged, but non-existing evidence of electoral fraud. The decision to ask for a full recount of first round of the presidential elections – with no precedent in existing democracies — has further exacerbated the distrust of voters in institutions and politicians.
Last weekend’s parliamentary election delivered a fragmented Parliament in which anti-system, right-wing populist parties hold about 32% of the seats across three different parties. The rest of the parliamentary seats are shared between pro-European parties across a large spectrum of ideological orientations. While these parties share their commitment to EU and NATO membership, their very divergent domestic policy objectives pose a major obstacle to their ability to form a coherent, cross-party governing coalition.
Finalising the reforms assumed under EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility, reducing the 8% budget deficit through cuts in government spending and increased taxes, and reducing national public debt (in the face of increasing borrowing cost) are all difficult tasks for government with a strong backing in Parliament.
Thus, the results of this Sunday’s second round of the presidential election are crucial for Romania’s pro-European and democratic future. A Georgescu presidency would put Romania under Russia’s orbit, directly jeopardising EU and NATO efforts to support Ukraine’s fight for freedom. In turn, a win by Ms. Lasconi would ensure Romania stays on its pro-democracy and pro-European trajectory with little change in its international commitments.
More generally, the latter outcome would also reassure European partners that its efforts to boost Ukraine’s self-defence will not be jeopardised in the medium and long term. However, domestic governance will remain tricky due to the economic situation of the country, which will only fuel the flame of nationalism and extremism in the years to come.
Roman-Gabriel Olar is Assistant Professor in the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University.
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