So yesterday the first round of the presidential election took place in our country (2 rounds in total, next one on 8 Dec). Everyone was expecting something but no one expected what ended up happening: an independent candidate who was virtually unknown as recent as 2 weeks ago, Călin Georgescu, won 1st place. For reference: it’s as if an unknown third party candidate won the US presidential election against Kamala and Trump. Călin beat even Marcel Ciolacu, current prime minister and part of PSD, the party which has dominated Romania since the fall of communist (1989).
I have a real bad feeling all our elections everywhere have been infiltrated by Russia, and by the time someone can prove it, it will be too late to do anything about it. Too many pro russia surprises everywhere.
Ban freaking Tiktok! It’s just a propaganda machine which is also meant to dumb down the Western population by China and Russia. It’s wild to me how China and Russia ban apps that they see as propaganda, but the West refuses to take any actions against actual propaganda means.
What do you think is going to happen policy-wise? To what extent will he have to compromise or work with other existing powers to enact their agenda?
I believe this is the worst case scenario that could’ve happened. This Călin guy is an extremist far-right, anti UE & NATO, pro-Russia politician. He has 2 criminal cases for glorifying / excusing the genocide Ion Antonescu (Nazi WW2 leader) committed in Romania & saying Ion & another far-right figure (legionnaire, fascist) - Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, are martyrs / national heroes. He came out of absolutely nowhere and many Romanians haven’t even heard of him before yesterday. He didn’t have any posters, ads, didn’t go on podcasts, TV shows, etc. to campaign; he only campaigned on Tiktok, which in my opinion was 100% funded by Russia and he is a puppet (Telegram groups were exposed where people shared videos to spam on Tiktok), full of bots. Thankfully the fight is not fully lost yet as he’s facing Elena Lasconi on 8 Dec, think of it as Trump vs Kamala… Elena’s chances fully depend on her ability to mobilize the other major parties to support her - share their electorate with her. Policy wise it’d be a nightmare if this guy got in. On 1 Dec we have parliamentary elections and there’s a high chance that AUR (far right political party - Calin’s former party until he got kicked out for being too extreme even for them) will get a lot of seats, so with both a far right president and parliament, it’s very bad… thankfully I don’t think the other major parties will let this happen, this guy is the embodiment of the “anti system candidate” and they won’t let their status quo power go away just like that.
Bună dimineaţa! In France, my country, we had a victory of the Far-Right party last spring, but that shook our population and the left won the legislative elections which occurred 3 weeks later. According to you, whether Georgescu or Lasconi win, is a scenario like that possible for the legislative elections?
We have parliamentary elections on 1 Dec and the far right AUR will always probably win. So it’s either a complete right government or a centrist president with a far right parliament.
Which other parties do you think would line up behind Georgescu and which would align themsleves with Lasconi (2nd place/runoff challenger) in the final round? Or would entrenched parties keep quiet until the election is decided?
AUR voters (far right) will definitely back him, their leader (Simion - one presidential candidates yesterday) already stated his support. Lasconi’s chances fully depended on whether PSD and PNL (major status quo parties) back her. I personally think they will because Calin is too “anti establishment” for them (which is funny cause Lasconi is also seen as one of the anti establishment candidates). PSD might be a bit of a swing tho. This situation is a nightmare no matter what though.
Is this election result reflective of a world-wide trend of incumbents losing due to the perceived or real loss of wealth/buying power of the public? Or are there special local reasons for why the far-right candidate has risen to such heights?
I had no idea who this guy was until yesterday…
