Torn between European aspirations and Kremlin influence, Romania is preparing – once again – to elect a new president

How is Romania dealing with the pre-election period? Ilie Bolojan of the National Liberal Party (PNL) is currently the acting president, following the resignation of Klaus Iohannis, and eleven candidates are contesting the election. Among these is Elena Lasconi, who came second in the November elections. The president of the Save Romania Union (USR, liberal) is determined to capitalise on that result, which positioned her as a champion of democracy and Europeanism. More recently, however, polls have placed Lasconi at only 5 percent of voting intentions, causing the USR to withdraw its support in favour of Nicușor Dan, the mayor of Bucharest. Lasconi then won a lawsuit against USR, which ruled, however, that she could not use party funds for the campaign.

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According to an AtlasIntel poll published in mid-April, Dan, a founder of the USR but now running as an independent candidate, stands at 21.2 % of voting intentions. Just ahead of Dan is Crin Antonescu, the candidate of the pro-European governing coalition (Social Democratic Party, PNL and the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania), with 24.7 %. In first place is George Simion of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR, right-wing populist) with 33.4 %. Many of the voters intending to vote for Simion are those that would have voted for Georgescu. Currently, the far right represents a third of the Romanian parliament, and includes Anamaria Gavrilă’s Party of Young People, and MEP Diana Șoșoaca’s S.O.S. Romania. Polling in fourth place is the independent Victor Ponta (9.7 %), a former social-democratic prime minister, who is running on a Trump-like, populist platform.

In both the pro-European and populist camps, civil society played an important role in the demonstrations that followed the cancellation of the first round of the presidential elections. We talked about this factor with Romanian writer and activist Radu Vancu, a professor of literature at the University of Sibiu. Born in 1978, Vancu is the author of the Manifesto for Europe, published on 15 March, and a member of the Group for Social Dialogue, an organisation of former dissidents of the communist regime. Vancu was a protagonist in the 2017-18 protests against the social-democratic government’s bitterly contested justice reforms, with the movement Vă vedem din Sibiu (“We see you from Sibiu”) that spread from the Transylvanian city to the rest of the country.

Radu Vancu: Romania did not sleep that night. We were constantly updating the election results page, and the atmosphere was surreal. For two thirds of us, he was a stranger who came out of nowhere, or a marginal character at most. It was like the country had been taken hostage without our knowledge, since all the statistics inform us that Romania is decidedly pro-European. If you ask people what they think about the EU, most will answer positively. Yet many of our compatriots voted for a pro-Russian candidate. It is stupefying.

Was there not something predictable about all this? After all, the Romanian far right has been growing in recent years.

Yes, following a common trend across Europe and in the United States. But after the elections in Moldova we thought we had stopped Vladimir Putin’s obvious investment in extremist parties. We Romanians, like the Moldovans, are well aware of the Russian menace. We were convinced we could control these forces, which accounted for around 20 % of the electorate. Instead we ended up with a pro-Russian candidate and 35 % of parliamentary seats occupied by far-right parties, two of which claim direct links to fascism. The nightmare lasted two weeks, normal life was impossible, we felt we had entered an outright war with Russia, albeit a hybrid one.

Is nostalgia for fascism at the root of the Georgescu phenomenon?

There is a law in force since 2002 against apology for Legionarism, the Iron Guard [a paramilitary organisation active from 1927 to 1941], and Marshal Antonescu and Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, founders of the far right in Romania and responsible for the country’s part in the Shoah. But the law has never been applied. This has only encouraged these movements to become increasingly visible in society and politics. After the elections, Diana Șoșoaca appeared with an Orthodox priest in a public commemoration for Zelea Codreanu in Tâncăbești, near Bucharest, where he is buried. The event was broadcast live on Facebook, and thus constituted a clear effort to normalise fascism in public life. Seeing themselves as the “winners”, [these movements] felt it was time to make their programme of re-fascisation public. That is why we took to the streets – not to demand the annulment of the result of a democratic process. The pro-European parties had obtained two-thirds of the seats in parliament, so we demanded that they give up their internal conflicts to create a pro-European alliance, a cordon sanitaire to save European Romania. These efforts were helped by pressure from civil society and interventions in the press. The parties formed a coalition, and selected a single pro-European candidate for the presidential elections.

Georgescu’s supporters say they are pacifists in favour of the traditional family and neutrality in Ukraine. Are there two different Romanias?

There is a pro-European Romania that certainly sees the shortcomings of the political class, but also sees the enormous progress the country has made since we joined the EU. Just think that in 2000 the convergence rate of our salaries with the EU was 26 %, and today it is around 80 %. Inequality has remained almost unchanged, and according to EU data, extreme poverty has fallen by 7 %. Despite the cynicism of the political class, which must be penalised, pro-European Romania is convinced that it is necessary to remain in the Union, and that this is the only way to correct the errors of these 18 years of integration.

The second Romania is part pro-Russian, part pro-fascist, part anti-establishment, anti-vax, anti-science. Georgescu’s supporters see the country’s structural flaws and call for a reset of the system, accepting the risk of moving away from Europe. Here is the difference: for us, change can only happen within the EU. Our membership is non-negotiable. Georgescu has aggregated different fragments of Romania, unified them through the malicious and illegal use of TikTok and other social media platforms. Because his videos were not flagged as “election advertising”, his reach on the platform was not limited, like it was for others, and he was able to flood the internet with his content. This is one of the reasons for the cancellation [of the first round]: he did not act according to the rules, so the election had to be repeated under fair conditions.

Why TikTok and not the press or television?

TikTok’s algorithms are highly aggressive in targeting users, unlike television. If you watch one Georgescu video shared by friends, you will receive thousands more within the next few hours. TV channels allocate equal speaking time to each candidate, everyone competes on an equal footing. TikTok and social media are not democratic, and we have learned this the hard way. They are tailored to the individual user and exploited by malicious actors. This is a common problem in Europe and the United States, where Joe Biden adopted a law to regulate TikTok. Efforts are also being made in the EU, and Ireland already has a mechanism in place. We need to make the algorithm and digital culture more democratic – at the moment they are not democratic. This is one of the major challenges of democratic societies, and the risk is their dissolution, given how easily manipulated they are by such networks. With minimal resources, it is possible to destabilise a country like Romania, and make the rest of Europe – which sees us as a pilot case – tremble.

Romania ended up looking like a fragile state, susceptible to the influences of a foreign power.

Not all the documents of the security services have been declassified, but according to the report of the Supreme Council of National Defence (CSAT), the elections were influenced by an external state actor. The question now is whether the country has the resources to organise fair elections in May. Are the intelligence services, the Permanent Election Authority and other institutions mature and robust enough to organise elections that are secure? We anxiously await the answer, hoping that extremists will fail to find space.

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‘We have to wonder whether Romania has sufficient resources to resist as a European democracy’ – Radu Vancu

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Were the authorities slow to intervene?

There was obvious hesitation. On the Monday after the first round of the elections, the Presidential Administration declared that there had been no interference. But three days later the CSAT communiqué stated the opposite. It is possible that during this period Romania received information from strategic allies (NATO) and realised the extent of the electoral interference operation. While it is good that a falsified process was eventually blocked, citizens’ trust in the state was lost, because for days no institution seemed to do its duty or have the strength to stop this hybrid war. Then came the cancellation and the National Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA) investigation into Șoșoaca’s party, followed by the arrest of members of Georgescu’s legionary group. The state proved it had the antibodies, but would it have survived without the reaction of allies and protesters? What if we had left it in the hands of politicians alone? We have to wonder whether Romania has sufficient resources to resist as a European democracy. Until we see a pro-European president, parliament and government, we won’t be breathing any sighs of relief. We need heavy investment in education. A 2011 law allocates 6 percent of the budget to this sector, but only half of it is allocated each year. An education system without funds does not foster citizens with sufficient awareness. We also have to focus on history, literature, sociology and civic education. Around the world, there is a heavy focus on science and technology, but humanist education, without which a society cannot function, is neglected. With such an education, citizens will understand why extremism is unacceptable, why it generates mass crimes, discrimination, denial of rights, and worlds we thought were gone forever, convinced they were accidents of history.

For how long has Romania been exposed to Russian influence?

For centuries. In 1812, half of the Principality of Moldova became a Russian governorate, Bessarabia. Then it was reclaimed by Romania from 1918 to 1940, before being reintegrated into the USSR. Today it is an autonomous state, the Republic of Moldova, which, thanks to Maia Sandu, its extraordinary president, is integrating with the EU. But there is also the experience of the 20th century. The Romanian communist regime (1947-1989), imposed by Moscow with tanks, was among the most repressive in history. This experience with Russia was traumatic enough that there is no desire to repeat it. This is why Georgescu’s success is so surprising. In fact, he managed to conceal the pro-Russian aspect by blending it into the other positions with which he enticed the electorate.

What will Romanian society look like after the coming weeks?

If we have a pro-European president after the May elections, all this evil will have served a purpose. During crises, civil society reacts and politicians gain lucidity. Even with all their past mistakes, they kept a steady course and the institutions took action, in extremis but just enough to keep Romania in Europe. This was a well-planned Blitzkrieg that has left us stunned. But the country has managed to recover and, after an initial defeat, has avoided submission to the Kremlin’s influence.

What is the role of intellectuals?

Cultural institutions should be at the forefront of Romania’s Europeanisation process, but they have been either inactive or complicit in the drift to the right. Georgescu and similar figures have been invited several times to the Romanian Academy, whose president [Ioan-Aurel Pop] is a historian whose narrative is, in many ways, similar to that of Georgescu. This is a big problem. The Romanian Orthodox Church has tolerated similar figures for too long, and even urged the faithful to vote for Georgescu during mass. Although late, these two institutions have since publicly distanced themselves from him. I would like for them to firmly embrace Europeanism from now on. Although they do not represent the institutions, writers like Mircea Cărtărescu, as well as actors, musicians and artists have taken a stand to show that there is a European Romania.

🤝 This article is published within the Come Together collaborative project