2024 is the year that Romania celebrates 35 years of democracy and freedom. It also happens to be the ultimate electoral year, with people voting in local, European, parliamentary, and presidential elections. What started out as a moderately concerning presidential race, given the general surge of far-right populism across the globe, ended with the Romanian Constitutional Court declaring the entire electoral process invalid due to an unconstitutional TikTok campaign, cybersecurity concerns, and Russian ties.
What’s the Fuss?!
With Romania being a semi-presidential republic, the head of state fulfils certain duties which raise the stakes of the vote. The president represents the country abroad, nominates the prime minister (PM), has the power to dissolve the parliament, and is the supreme commander of the Romanian Armed Forces. In a country sharing a 613.8 km long border with Ukraine, having a pro-EU and pro-NATO president seems integral and a necessity.
While the benefits of being an EU Member State are evident and ironclad, Romania has long struggled with some of the highest poverty and inequality rates in Europe. Coupled with a longstanding ping-pong rule of the social democratic and national liberal parties PSD-PNL, institutionalized corruption, the aftermath of the pandemic, and an outdated educational system, trust in politicians and the state kept eroding, and the society became very polarized.
Death to the System
In 2023, 48% of the population still believed that the communist regime was good for the country. People miss the ‘simpler’ times when inequality was not as raging when everyone was, essentially, equally poor – but equal. The big mainstream parties PSD and PNL have monopolised the political scene for several years, creating the aura of a political mafia through their alliance and making democracy seem more fictitious than real.
Simultaneously, Romania’s poor performance on important issues like EU funds absorption, education, and general government deficit became impossible to hide. Slowly, the electoral pools of PSD and PNL started thinning out. PM Ciolacu’s (PSD) governing and President Iohannis’ (PNL) second mandate further damaged their respective legitimacy.
Following the results of the EP elections in June, polls were anticipating a big chunk of the national parliament to be taken up by the anti-systemic parties AUR and SOS, which was later confirmed after the parliament vote on December 1st. Pro-European Romanians found themselves having to exercise a ‘useful vote’ (vot util) to ensure that Romania’s president steers away from Eurosceptic values. It was no longer about supporting the right candidate for the country, but about choosing the less of all evil - i.e. back to the same systemic parties.
Ask and you shall receive
On November 24, as they went to the voting polls, people who dreamt of an independent candidate, a real change, someone with a real chance at winning and breaking the system had to make amends with a useful vote for yet another 5 years as they stamped their ballots.
As the results of the first round started rolling in, everybody was stunned. Independent candidate Călin Georgescu got 23% of votes in the first round, leading the race to become the next president. Călin Georgescu: a name no one had seen in any of the predictive polls, on billboards, or on TV, a man no one had heard about - or at least so it seemed at first glance.
TikTok President
A closer look revealed an extensive online campaign focused primarily on TikTok. Slowly but surely people started coming forward and admitting they had voted for him after seeing his videos online. Notably, he was the top choice for Romanians living abroad within Europe.
While he managed to mobilise over 2 million voters, many people had never come across his name before. His online campaign was targeted and fine-tuned, using all the tools from bots, mass spamming, fake accounts which kept regenerating every day, as well as micro influencers, all targeting the fragile Romanian voter: disillusioned, disappointed, defeated, sick of the system, unsure who to vote for – and offered them a golden ticket solution.
When something seems too good to be true, it almost always is Georgescu seemed to be the perfect independent anti-systemic candidate: educated, presentable, calculated, with the perfect wife and career track record, with no party backing and motivated by pure love for his country, Orthodoxy, and hatred for the system.
Yet his views consist of loudly stated problematic far-right statements: Pro-Russia, Eurosceptic and anti-NATO, misogynistic, radically religious, and, most notably, idolising Romania’s military fascist movement from the 1930s, the legionary movement (the Iron Guard). He presents himself as this immaculate independent candidate, having actually been a PM recommendation from AUR’s side a few years back, before leaving the party. All he wants is peace, but his way of achieving that is by staying ‘neutral’ and introducing conscription. His wife and him blend radical political views with lunatic theories about sodas containing nanobots and women needing to wear skirts/dresses to allow the energy to flow in.
Videos of him saying that the only salvation for Romania is Russian wisdom, praising Romanian fascists for their patriotism and courage, and stating that women have no business in politics quickly started surfacing. Since November 24, efforts have been concentrated on debunking his narrative and ringing all alarms about the looming danger of Romania turning East. Dirty political games keep unfolding, with PSD and Ciolacu trying to reconsolidate their power in the next government and the Constitutional Court asking for a vote recount before validating the results of the first round. A new far-right party POT - Party of the Young People, who supported Georgescu’s presidential candidacy - appeared overnight, promoting itself on TikTok and winning seats in the parliament.
Now you’re voting, now you’re not
Georgescu’s campaign triggered an investigation of foreign interference in the elections by the Supreme Council of National Defence (CSAT). 10 Days after the first election round, the CSAT documents were declassified which revealed that Russia intervened in support of Georgescu, while TikTok did not block the illegal campaign content as requested by the Romanian authorities. Despite widespread concern about these discoveries, the Constitutional Court ruled on 5th of December that the electoral process would proceed as planned.
Romanians were set to vote for their new president on Sunday, 8th of December, which happens to be Constitution Day in Romania. Voting abroad commenced on Friday, 6th of December, and by the time that 50k people had already voted in the diaspora, the press leaked that the Constitutional Court annulled the first round of the elections because of the unconstitutional campaign of Georgescu, shutting down the elections mid-vote.
Stay tuned for Season 2 in 2025
To this day, Georgescu claims that he had no campaigning budget and all allegations are fake, although there is proof that refutes this claim. Following the annulment, some of Georgescu’s mercenaries were caught armed on Sunday (8th of December) around Bucharest, planning on instigating riots. Some argue that the parliamentary elections results should also be cancelled, given the same concerns apply for POT’s campaign as they did for Georgescu.
So, what’s next? The electoral period will commence from the start, all the way from gathering signatures to campaigning, pushing the presidential vote towards March 2025. Until then, Iohannis will be staying on as president, and unless the parliamentary vote gets annulled, Romania is set to form a new government in the near future.
Hope dies last – Speranța moare ultima
Plenty of people voted for Georgescu because he seems to represent an apparent break from the long known system. The system has failed Romania to the point where even fascism and turning towards Russia seem plausible alternatives if it means escaping the endless loop of the last years. All there is left to do is to hope democracy and freedom will prevail, and that people will remember what Romania fought for 35 years ago.
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