A little-known far-right populist has won Sunday’s presidential election in Romania, according to electoral data, and will face left-wing Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu in a second round in two weeks.
Calin Georgescu, who ran as an independent candidate, led the polls with nearly 22% of the votes after almost 93% of the votes were counted, while Ciolacu, of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), was behind with the 21%. Elena Lasconi, of the Union Save Romania party, or USR, was around 18%, and George Simion, leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, or AUR, was around 14%.
After the polls closed, 9.4 million people had voted, around 52.4% of voters, according to the Central Electoral Office. The second round will be held on December 8.
The president serves a five-year term and has significant decision-making power in areas such as national security, foreign policy and judicial appointments in the European Union and the NATO member country.
Georgescu, 62, ran as an independent candidate and was not well known. He surpassed most local polls, which shocked the Romanian political class and propelled him to first position.
After casting his vote on Sunday, Georgescu said in a Facebook post that he had voted “for the unjust, for the humiliated, for those who feel they do not matter and in reality are the ones who matter the most… the vote is a prayer for the nation.”
Cristian Andrei, a political consultant based in Bucharest, told The Associated Press that Georgescu’s unexpected result at the polls appears to be a “big protest or revolt against the establishment.”
“The main political parties have lost connection with ordinary Romanians,” he said. “There are no strong candidates or strong leaders… there are weak candidates, weak leaders, and the parties in general are quite disconnected.”
Georgescu lacks a program, Andrei said, and has a vague, populist manifesto with positions that are “beyond normal discourse.” Their positions include supporting Romanian farmers, reducing dependence on imports and increasing energy and food production.
Georgescu has described NATO’s anti-ballistic missile shield in the Romanian city of Deveselu as a “shame of diplomacy.” He has stated that the North Atlantic Alliance will not protect any of its members if they are attacked by Russia.
According to his website, Georgescu has a doctorate in Pedology, a branch of soil science, and held different positions in the Romanian Ministry of the Environment in the 1990s. Between 1999 and 2012 he was Romania’s representative on the national committee of the United Nations Environment Programme.
In the videos he posts to his popular TikTok account, where he has accumulated 1.6 million likes, he appears attending church, practicing judo, running on an oval track, and speaking on podcasts.
Romania shares a 650 km border with Ukraine and, since Russia attacked kyiv in 2022, has allowed the export of millions of tonnes of grain through its Black Sea port of Constanta and provided military aid, including donation of a Patriot air defense battery.
Towns on the border with Ukraine have witnessed a barrage of drones that have violated national airspace, although no casualties have been reported.
One political commentator claimed that Russian meddling to help Georgescu in the election could not be ruled out. “Taking into account Georgescu’s stance towards Ukraine and the discrepancy between opinion polls and the actual result, we cannot rule it out,” said Sergiu Miscoiu, professor of political science at Babes-Bolyai University.
Romania will also hold parliamentary elections on December 1, which will determine the country’s next government and prime minister.
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