Ultranationalist independent Călin Georgescu has qualified for Romania’s presidential runoff after topping Sunday’s first round with a surprise 23 percent score. While a recount may yet tip the balance, in the final ballot on December 8 he is expected to face center-right candidate Elena Lasconi of the Save Romania Union (USR). Her 19 percent score edged out incumbent Social Democratic prime minister Marcel Ciolacu, the first time this party’s candidate has failed to reach the second round since the end of state socialism in 1989. In the runoff, Georgescu can hope to draw far-right voters from the fourth-placed Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), aligned with Italian premier Giorgia Meloni’s group in the European Parliament, whose candidate took 14 percent.
Exit polls had suggested that Lasconi and Ciolacu would be heading into the final runoff, but the real results showed that ultranationalist Georgescu had made unprecedented gains. He hailed his victory as “an amazing awakening of the Romanian people.” He speaks of challenging foreign corporations and globalization, making Romania less reliant on food and energy imports, imposing hard-line anti-immigration measures, and implementing a new foreign policy that promises to end aid to Ukraine and defy NATO influence in Romania.
His breakthrough might not be the awakening of the Romanian people. But it should be a wake-up call to Romanians and everyone in denial about the rise of disaster nationalism and what Hungarian philosopher G. M. Tamás termed “post-fascism.” Georgescu’s critics called him the “Romanian Meloni” for a reason. Following a general global pattern and the fascization of European politics, Georgescu rose to prominence by expressing his great…
Auteur: Anita Zsurzsán
