Romania, the eighth largest country in the European Union and the main one in the Balkans since the break-up of Yugoslavia, has attracted attention in recent months from those who see the power struggles in the country of 18 million people in terms of a duel between malign globalists and the apostles of national self-reliance.
Due to the clumsiness and arrogance of a floundering pro-Western elite, the determined and rough-hewn nationalist George Simion seemed poised for electoral victory this month. Romania shares the longest frontier with Ukraine of any EU state, and the geopolitical implications of someone with Simion’s views coming to power appeared stark. He expressed the anger of farmers about the dumping of Ukrainian grain on the Romanian market and, more substantially, the fears of many in the security establishment that the existence of a post-war, western-leaning Ukraine, would force Romania to finally tackle long-delayed internal reforms.
In the event, a rare debate occurred among Romanians about what kind of country they wanted and with whom it should be aligned. Claims of imperialist interference by the guardians of Euro-Atlantic interests abounded, but it was the Romanians themselves who determined which of the candidates allowed on the ballot would prevail. By a large margin, they concluded that in a fractured world that had brought war to Romania’s very doorstep, this was not a time for any leaps into the unknown.
For a while in the 1990s, following the violent removal of the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceauşescu, fears abounded that the country would be torn apart by ethnic strife. These centered on the province of Transylvania—part of Hungary until 1918—and home to a sizable Magyar-speaking minority. Disaster was averted, but decades of poor governance followed.
“Romanians got used to having things done to them.”
Romanians got used to having things done to them, but by less exacting masters than the late Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu and their henchmen. A pact was struck at the turn of the century between the converts to capitalism from former moderate Communists and the European Union as it expanded eastwards: Romania would be thrown open to foreign capital provided the pinkish new bosses in Bucharest could arrange politics so that their hold was never under threat. In other words, the European Union would display vigilance about economic freedoms being respected while being prepared to avert its gaze from democratic backsliding as long as it wasn’t too shocking.
Romanians regretted the closure of their factories and the arrival of multinational firms that sent profits westwards. They sighed when sharp-elbowed Dutch and Italian agrarian barons bought up some of the best land and received subsidies from EU taxpayers for farming it. But most were happy to seize the opportunity to move elsewhere in Europe for better salaries.
After Romania formally joined the European Union in 2007, four million people left. Until last winter, it was assumed that the emergence of a vast diaspora would act as an important safety valve lowering the temperature at home. The brain drain was regretted, particularly in the medical field. The departure of low-income citizens to work in the food-processing sector, as bus or taxi drivers or as care assistants, was not usually seen as problematic. The emigrants sent valuable remittances homewards, but it was not remotely assumed that they could plunge the country into crisis.
Yet this is what happened on Nov. 24 when—in the first round of presidential elections—they catapulted into first place Calin Georgescu, a 62-year-old with large gaps in his biography who blended esoteric New Age thinking with a mix of politics nostalgic for the different forms of pre-1989 extremism that Romania had endured. The secret of his success was a tightly managed social media campaign. Coordinated TikTok accounts—often including short promotional videos of Georgescu—enabled the philosophically minded judo expert with a soporific nationalist message to appear as the man of the hour. He appealed to émigrés who believed that they had been discarded by an unscrupulous elite at home.
There were reasons to be dissatisfied with the power-holders in Bucharest. In a fateful move, the Social Democrats and Liberals—the chief political rivals—had used the excuse of the coronavirus outbreak in 2021 to bury their hostilities and form a government of national unity. As the pandemic was grossly mishandled, they (and their clients) grew ever fatter on state contracts just as fears were mounting that Romania would be dragged into the war next door in Ukraine.
With both parties out of the presidential contest for the first time, panic engulfed official circles. Fearing that Georgescu might be unstoppable, the ruling coalition—along with a deeply unpopular president, Klaus Iohannis—cancelled the second electoral round 48 hours before the vote. The claim that an unnamed foreign power was using hybrid electronic methods to disrupt the election was the main reason advanced. But a detailed explanation for such a drastic step was lacking and to many eyes the claim never held up.
Georgescu’s key backers were actually to be found within Romania and not in Moscow. The army and the sprawling intelligence service contained nostalgics for bygone times. No doubt Russia played a role, mindful of what a blow it would be to Ukraine if Romania, an important transit country for weapons and other supplies, stormed out of the Western fold.
Romanians, by and large, are not a volatile people. They have put up with much from a set of venal and incompetent rulers. But there is no doubt something snapped on Dec. 6. The mood of many seemed to align with the outspoken critics of the global liberal order. Social media enabled the view to spread that malign foreign interests were blocking the ascension of patriots determined to shield Romania from the decadence and exploitation of a borderless world.
But the redeemer wasn’t to be Georgescu. He was disqualified from running on March 9 for alleged offenses against the constitution and electoral law. This was after the authorities had settled on dates for an electoral re-run and then changed their minds, before finally settling on dates in May.
The flaky Romanian state appeared to be on the ropes when former Polish prime minister, Mateusz Marowiecki, accompanied Georgescu’s replacement George Simion to the Bucharest office where he filed his candidacy. Senior members of the new US administration criticized the Romanian authorities for diluting the democracy which was the basis of the US-Europe partnership. Simion was the leader of Aur (the Romanian word for gold), the main nationalist formation. It had first entered parliament in 2019. His poll ratings soon eclipsed those of all rivals, even though he was different in style from Georgescu. Abrupt and sometimes lacking tact when the carefully-packaged Georgescu was ethereal and statesmanlike, he was a man numerous skeptics of the European Union and the Ukraine War hoped to see win.
On May 4, in the first round of voting, Simion got 41 percent, acquiring over 60 percent of the votes from the diaspora. Once again the ruling tandem were rejected and it was Nicusor Dan, the independent mayor of Bucharest, who won second place with 21 percent of the vote. To many it seemed a foregone conclusion that Simion would win.
But a strange thing happened. The anger of Romanians over having been cheated out of making their own choice in December began to abate. It was replaced by heart-searching about what would result from choosing a candidate angry with the West, from which overbearing supervision but also opportunities for prosperity had come. Despite the corruption, living standards had leapt ahead, at least in the cities, since the end of the 1990s.
Fears that Simion would lead the country over a cliff started to surface. He made it easy by promising to slash jobs in the urban bureaucracy. A decisive moment was the four-hour televised debate with Dan on May 8. Simion was short-tempered and arrogant and struggled to think on his feet in the face of clever jabs from an unflustered opponent. He abruptly canceled the remaining televised debates, with Dan turning up and answering questions next to an empty chair. The rest of his time was spent traversing Europe, speaking to émigrés while seeming blasé about the economic condition of the country.
At home, Simion’s strongholds are areas of the country with a high elderly population and few signs of foreign investment or EU funding. Urban dwellers appeared more concerned about economic issues including the slump in value of companies in which pension funds are heavily invested, and the sharp rise of interest rates on loans. Simion’s increasingly provocative attacks on the European Union and the promise to make Georgescu his prime minister also worried many in the diaspora who perhaps had not voted previously. They could be left in limbo if a confrontation ensued between the European Union and a weak but mutinous member like Romania over foreign policy and the rule of law.
By May 18, stinging memories of the December election cancellation were beginning to be superseded by worries about taking a bold leap into the political unknown. Turnout rose from 54 to 63 percent. Dan drew the bulk of votes from those who had previously backed other candidates, leaping from 21 to 54 percent while Simion managed a minor increase from 39 to 46 percent.
“An underperforming establishment was lucky to face a low-grade opponent.”
An underperforming establishment was lucky to face a low-grade opponent. As former President Basescu remarked on election night when fears arose that Simion wouldn’t recognize the result: “George Simion has remained at the level of a football gallery chieftain who swears, who is violent, who evades responsibility and who is always ready to fight with the gendarmes.”
It was naive of right-wing social-media influencers to bet so heavily on a Simion victory. They refused to factor in the fact that he was in the long line of Balkan outlaws, or haiduks, from whom the settled population normally sought protection. Similarly, the European Union foolishly assumed that as long as profits flowed from Bucharest and lip-service was paid to anti-Putin initiatives, then Romania’s slum-like political condition was of no consequence.
This error will be magnified if the Brussels elite assumes Dan can be an acceptable front man for a broken-down state. The new president will be well aware of the likely recrudescence of anger if abuses of power remain unchecked. He is both resilient and resourceful, and it is to be hoped that he will promote meaningful changes.
Otherwise the ultra-nationalists will be back, better prepared and backed by a diaspora created by globalization and determined to vote for its fiercest enemies.