Surprising result in Romania’s presidential elections
The independent candidate Călin Georgescu takes the lead in the first round of the presidential elections in Romania.
Mihai Pelin, 25.11.2024, 14:00
The independent candidate Călin Georgescu takes the lead in the first round of the presidential elections in Romania.
Over 9.4 million Romanians cast their ballot for the country’s next president in the first round of voting on Sunday. The voter turnout rate was 52.55%, much higher than five years ago, when it stood at 42.19%. Over 820,000 Romanians voted abroad, most of them in the United Kingdom (150,000), Germany (145,000) and Italy (123,000). The big surprise of the election is the independent candidate Călin Georgescu, a 62-year-old agronomist engineer, who ranked first in the voters’ preferences. He worked as an expert in sustainable development and was secretary of state in the Ministry of Environment. He headed a department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then held various positions at the UN in the field of environment, for several years. Since 2013, he has been head of the European Research Centre of the Club of Rome, and is currently a professor at the University of Piteşti (south).
The international media reports that Romanians are voting for extremism, which from a geopolitical point of view is a disaster. Electoral earthquake in Romania: a pro-Russian candidate that no one expected came out first in the first round of the presidential elections, ahead of the pro-European Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, France Presse reports. A hard-right Romanian politician and NATO critic has achieved a shocking result that threatens Romania’s firm pro-Ukraine stance, Reuters reports. Călin Georgescu was associated with the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), a party that had repeatedly mentioned his name as a candidate for prime minister. He was later removed by the AUR leadership, who accused him of damaging the party’s image with his pro-Russian and anti-NATO stance. In a 2021 interview, Călin Georgescu described NATO’s missile shield at Deveselu as “a shame of diplomacy” and said the Alliance would not protect any of its members if they were attacked by Russia. In addition, he said that Ion Antonescu, Romania’s de facto leader in World War II, who was sentenced to death for his role in the Holocaust, and Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the leader of the Legionary movement – one of the most violent and anti-Semitic in Europe – are national heroes.
A criminal case was opened against Georgescu for promoting the personality cult of individuals suspected of genocide. Romania’s best chance is “Russian wisdom,” he said in another interview. Extremely religious and nationalist, he campaigned for reducing Romania’s dependence on imports, supporting farmers and increasing domestic food and energy production. Călin Georgescu stayed out of the spotlight and focused on social media. Romanians voted for him, including those in the diaspora, despite his strongly anti-Semitic, legionary, “messianic,” pro-Russian and anti-Western discourse. “I said we are not doing politics, we are doing history. It came true,” he pointed out, after the polling stations closed.
