Big surprise in Romania Pro-Russian right-wing extremist goes into run-off election for president

The first round of elections in Romania ends with a big surprise: the extreme right-wing Tiktok campaigner Calin Georgescu wins more votes than the incumbent head of government. Many are shocked.

The pro-Russian right-wing extremist Calin Georgescu has surprisingly won the run-off election for the office of head of state in the NATO country of Romania. The populist, who has no party affiliation, attracted attention with his anti-Western positions and cult of the Romanian fascists from the Second World War era. Georgescu was largely ignored by his rivals and the traditional media, but he is very successful on the online platform Tiktok. In the first round of voting, he finished ahead of the second-placed Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu from the Social Democratic Party. The decision between the two will now be made on December 8 - one week after the parliamentary elections.

The easternmost EU member state Romania has around 19 million inhabitants, is considered one of the poorest countries in Europe and borders Ukraine to the north, which has been defending itself against a Russian invasion for almost three years.

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On the evening of the election, Georgescu said at a press conference broadcast via Facebook that the Romanian people had "awakened to consciousness" and expressed their will to "no longer remain on their knees, no longer under invasion, no longer humiliated". Economic insecurity had led to this vote. "Tonight, the Romanian people shouted 'peace'", Georgescu added - presumably with a view to Russia's war of aggression against neighboring Ukraine.

According to the Central Electoral Office, the extremist received around 22 percent of the vote in the first round of voting, while Ciolacu only received around 20 percent. This does not include the separately reported votes of Romanians living abroad, where Georgescu's share is almost twice as high.

The fourth-placed candidate George Simion from the far-right parliamentary party AUR, who was eliminated with 14% of the vote, announced that he would support Georgescu in the run-off. Elena Lasconi, candidate of the conservative-liberal Reform Party, came third with just under 19 percent. She has not yet declared her support for any of the remaining candidates.

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There was a similar situation in the presidential election in 2000: Back then, social democrat Ion Iliescu and right-wing extremist Corneliu Vadim Tudor faced each other in the run-off. The democratic parties joined forces and, thanks to strong support from European allies, were able to prevent an extremist from holding the highest state office.

In Romania, the president determines foreign and defense policy and is involved in controlling the secret services. He has more power than the German Federal President and less than the head of state in France. The performance of the candidates in the first round of the presidential election is also likely to influence the parliamentary elections on December 1.

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Friend of Russia and the Romanian fascists

The Romanian public prosecutor's office is investigating Georgescu on charges of glorifying fascist war crimes, but according to Romanian media, nothing is known about the progress of these investigations. Just like the Romanian fascists known as "legionnaires", Georgescu often praises the Orthodox Church and uses biblical quotations. He used to be a member of the extreme right-wing parliamentary party AUR, but resigned in a dispute.

The 62-year-old agronomist and veterinarian had campaigned for himself primarily on Tiktok. Commentators in Bucharest said on the evening of the election that the traditional media and established politicians should be criticized for not having paid enough attention to Georgescu's political propaganda on social media. Opinion pollsters had not seen his success coming either; even post-election surveys on the evening of the election did not give any indication of the result.

SDA