Even against the finest machinations the political establishment can produce, sometimes those cranky, knuckling-dragging peasants still do the exact opposite of what the end result was meant to be.
Romania is starting to look like a classic example of overcooking the goose, because, however well-meaning or even honest the intentions of the election bureaucracy and the country’s court system were, the Romanian people certainly appear to believe that they weren’t, have taken a diametrically opposing viewpoint, and are acting on it.
Particularly as they believe assertions have been made to justify drastic actions taken, with little evidence provided for the doing so.
A quick recap is in order to keep the players and offenses straight.
No matter who wins Sunday’s first round of the Romanian presidential election, it is a crisis for the country, for the European Union and for the relations of both with the United States.
This is the second attempt to hold the election. The regularly scheduled one was annulled last December amid accusations of candidate and government corruption. Cǎlin Georgescu, a Romanian nationalist, populist admirer of Donald Trump, mystical Christian and opponent of the Ukraine war, came seemingly out of nowhere to win the first round. He took 23% of the vote on the strength of a charismatic TikTok campaign, advancing to the second round against the centrist Elena Lasconi. For the first time since Communism, the country’s invincible-looking political establishment seemed to have been shut out of the presidency.
Calin Georgescu is rumored to be Soviet Union-friendly while not being of NATO as a whole.
The country’s Constitutional Court was so horrified that such an unsuitable candidate could come in so high that they ordered a recount, which found no irregularities in the voting. Romania’s Supreme Council for National Defense (CSAT) did, however, declassify evidence it said proved the Russians had set up over 800 TikTok accounts to support Georgescu’s campaign, which the Court said was enough foreign interference to annul the first election even as voting in the second part was underway.
In early March, Georgescu was snatched up on his way to file for the latest election attempt in May, interrogated for several hours, and then banned from running for office. At the same time, another candidate was banned for not being pro-Romania’s European Union and NATO membership enough in her public statements.
A few days later, the Constitutional Court upheld Georgescu’s ban, and he consoled his followers while urging them to consolidate around someone else vice start any trouble.
Romanian far-right populist Calin Georgescu has lost his appeal against a ruling barring him from participating in May’s presidential election.
The Constitutional Court issued the final ruling on Tuesday afternoon after deliberating for two hours. It said the decision was unanimous.
The Central Electoral Bureau had earlier rejected Georgescu’s candidacy for a rerun of the presidential election in May.
…”If you want to support anyone by signing new lists for the presidential campaign, please do as your conscience tells you,” he said. “It seems democracy and freedom are taking their last breath these days.
“But we need to show now, more than any other time, that our choice matters in a peaceful and democratic way,” Georgescu added.
That ‘someone’ became George Simion, most often characterized as a ‘nationalist and sovereigntist,’ who’d been the fourth-place also-ran in that first annulled election all the way back last fall and yet had expressed support immediately after Georgescu’s banning.
…Many Romanians believe he [Georgescu] is being blocked by a political elite that is corrupt and remote from the people.
George Simion, an ally of Georgescu and the leader of the far-right opposition Alliance for Uniting Romanians (AUR) wrote on Facebook: “Shame! You will not defeat us. The people of Romania have awoken. They will win.“
Simion has continued to do so and has been rising in the polls accordingly, even though he is less of a ‘character’ than Georgescu and what would be considered more moderate compared to him, and, so far, devoid of any pro-Russian stigma that enveloped Georgescu. Simion was also savvy enough to attend Trump’s inauguration.
…But we do know enough about the state of Romanian voters’ minds to pass judgment on what happened with its democracy last autumn. Obviously there was a genuine wave of rebellion behind Georgescu. We can tell from the behavior of voters and candidates in the months since. In Georgescu’s absence, George Simion, a member of the Right-wing Alliance for the Union of Romanians, is well ahead of the pack in the latest polls, at around 30%. (Georgescu once belonged to the AUR but was ousted for speaking sympathetically of the Legionaries, an interwar fascist group.)
Simion has risen primarily by consolidating his party’s base. More conventionally conservative than Georgescu, more sympathetic to the war in Ukraine, less a charismatic outsider, he has nonetheless tried to drape himself in Georgescu’s cause, showing up to Easter services with him. Simion even suggested he might make Georgescu his prime minister if elected. And he attended the inauguration of Donald Trump in Washington. Victor Ponta, a savvy former Social Democratic prime minister, considered an ideological chameleon — he, too, made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago. The centrist candidate Crin Antonescu, former leader of the Liberal party, is probably the last, best chance for the decades-old Romanian establishment to hang on. Yet one Romanian political scientist told the French newspaper Libération that nowadays, in some of his rhetorical flights, Antonescu “could pass for a member of [Marine Le Pen’s] National Rally”. Bucharest mayor Nicușor Dan, another tough-talking member of the establishment, has been trying to squeeze out Lasconi. Antonescu is thought to have the better chance of beating Simion in the second round. Shaken by the persistence of a disruptive war and the return of Donald Trump to the White House, the Romanian political landscape is changing.
Simion went into the first round of elections yesterday, hovering at about 30% in the polls, but time must have been his friend in the months between Georgescu’s banning and Romanians then having a chance to watch what was going on in the rest of Europe aka France, Germany, and Austria/Vienna.
He came out of the ballot boxes with over 40% of the votes cast.
Romania reran its presidential election after the first was unlawfully scrapped because the “wrong guy” won.
And guess what? Another “far-right extremist” came out on top.
How long until the EU demands another reelection? Place your bets. pic.twitter.com/IhEFqdhjC5
— Dr. Simon Goddek (@goddeketal) May 5, 2025
The rematch is going to be a true clash of concepts of European Union-central civilization.
…The upcoming 18 May vote is shaping up to be a referendum on Romania’s future: one aligned with Europe, or one leaning toward isolationism.
Simion, a nationalist and sovereigntist, capitalised on a wave of anti-establishment sentiment. For the second consecutive time, Romania’s main parties — the Social Democrats (PSD) and the Liberals (PNL) — failed to send their candidate, Crin Antonescu, to the runoff, despite heavy financial backing and support from a large network of mayors who traditionally influence voter turnout.
But now this strategy fell flat.
Simion won in 36 of Romania’s 41 counties, including that of current Social Democratic Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu. Perhaps most surprising was the overwhelming support Simion received from Romanians living in Europe, while Romanians in Moldova and the United States favored Nicușor Dan.
The runoff promises to be unpredictable.
With 40% of the vote, Simion, an open supporter of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement who opposes aid to Ukraine, enters as the frontrunner. He is also expected to attract voters from former PSD leader Victor Ponta, who ran a sovereigntist campaign that brought him around 14% support.
Simion is likely to also draw additional backing from segments of the Social Democratic base, especially among those who share his views on Orthodox values, the traditional family, and resistance to expanding minority rights, particularly for the LGBTQ+ community.
In the lead-up to the May 18 runoff, “this won’t be a debate between individuals,” warned Nicușor Dan on Sunday night. “It will be a debate between two visions for Romania: one pro-Western, the other anti-Western.”
Simion, while wrapping himself in Georgescu draperies, is also aligning himself with the Meloni-ists conservative members of the European Union.
…Speaking to Brussels Signal on May 5, George Simion vowed to vowed to maintain a defiant tone toward EU institutions.
“I come to Brussels with peace and reason, not conflict and provocation. The European Union has 27 nations, each with its own language, heritage, and challenges. A one-size-fits-all, Brussels-centered model cannot work for all. This is a very obvious, common-sense fact,” he said.
Simion went on to stress his alignment with other EU national-conservative figures: “The conservative movement within the EU, which I am proudly a part of, demands respect, not reprimand. Along with Mrs. Meloni, Mr. Morawiecki, we believe in a European Union of sovereign nations, united by cooperation, not coerced by bureaucracy,” he said.
Openly critical of European Union leadership and a vocal opponent of military aid to Ukraine, Simion lead a wave of public frustration at Romania’s political elite.
As Simion is openly critical of EU leadership, but not the EU itself, will that be enough to stave off judicial interference before the next round of Democracy, European-style?
Romania is gonna have to stop holding elections entirely to Save Democracy from Russian Interference, it seems pic.twitter.com/efkzlGwF4C
— Enguerrand VII de Coucy (@ingelramdecoucy) May 5, 2025
I’m not even going to take that bet.
No, sir.
