Romania blunts backlash with mainstream on track for victory

Romania’s ruling Social Democrats were on course to win a parliamentary election despite gains by a nationalist group that had threatened to deliver a blow to the Black Sea nation’s political establishment.
The Social Democrats took about 23 per cent of the vote on Sunday, with the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians behind at 18 per cent, according to the preliminary tally from the country’s electoral commission based on more than 99 per cent of the ballots counted. The Liberal party, which has ruled with the Social Democrats in the past three years, came in third with 14.4 per cent.
The outcome will likely complicate the forming of a new ruling coalition as more parties will need to join forces to keep the extremists away from power.
But it will also bring some relief for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) member, whose politics was thrown into a turmoil a week after a fringe candidate, Calin Georgescu, secured a shock victory in the first round of the presidential ballot. With a surge for the far-right, the elections have signalled a dramatic shift for a once-reliable transatlantic ally out of the European mainstream and toward Moscow.
A parliamentary victory for the Social Democrats, who have dominated Romania’s politics since the collapse of communism 35 years ago, would complicate an insurgency – and imply a desire among voters to hedge against a pro-Russian candidate taking the presidency.
The events over the last week put Romania at the forefront of Western nations grappling with a backlash against the political establishment as voters expressed their frustration with persistent poverty and endemic corruption. The country still ranks near the bottom among European Union member states in both categories since joining the bloc in 2007.
The nation of 19 million is also in a precarious spot. War-battered Ukraine lies to the north, putting the country closer to the Kremlin’s grip. In neighbouring Moldova, elections this year were marred by what the government called widespread Russian interference. Farther to the east, Georgia was grappling with upheaval as riot police used tear gas and water cannons – street battles prompted by a contested October victory by the ruling pro-Kremlin party.
But Romania’s parliamentary contest appeared to win the country some respite from forces seeking to tear it from the European fold, for now.
The opposition Save Romania Union, whose leader Elena Lasconi will face Mr Georgescu in a presidential runoff, came in fourth with 12 per cent of the vote and will likely help pro-European parties cobble together a parliamentary majority. Still, getting over personal animosities and program difference won’t be easy.
“We’ll have a polarised parliament with more parties than today, which means we’ll need to have a wider coalition and that’s not easy to manage,” said Ilie Bolojan, the Liberals’s interim leader, adding that his party is willing to negotiate a new cabinet. “The base for entering such a coalition is the reform of the state.”
Romanian prime minister Marcel Ciolacu, a Social Democrat, resigned as party leader last week after he was eliminated from the presidential contest. They will meet on Monday to decide their next strategy.
“We have understood the responsibility we have toward Romania,” Mr Ciolacu told voters after the exit polls were released.
Compounding the chaos of Romania’s election season is a court order for a recount of the Nov. 24 first round in the presidential election, with accusations from top security officials that the contest was tipped by Russian meddling.
The decision by Romania’s constitutional court raises the possibility that it may order a repeat of the first-round vote, a decision that could inflame voter anger over inflation, poverty and corruption. The judicial system is viewed by many as beholden to Romania’s power brokers.
Mr Georgescu, an agricultural engineer who languished in the single digits in polls just weeks before the presidential vote, defied polls showing that Mr Ciolacu would win the contest. The second round of the vote is scheduled between Mr Georgescu and Ms Lasconi on December 8th as planned, pending the court ruling.
A one-time AUR ally who fell out with the party after he praised Romania’s Nazi-allied second World War leaders, Mr Georgescu has also called for a halt to Ukrainian aid and cast doubt on the benefits of the country’s Nato membership. In 2020, Mr Georgescu praised Russian president Vladimir Putin as one of the world’s few true leaders.
Mr Georgescu’s victory is credited with a nimble social-media presence. TikTok posts featured esoteric chats from the candidate’s livingroom and high-resolution videos with sweeping landscape shots featuring Georgescu on horseback, performing judo moves or dipping into a mountain lake. The candidate drew scrutiny when he said he took no campaign funding.
Romania’s supreme defence council, which includes top government and intelligence officials, assessed that one candidate – it didn’t name Georgescu – benefited from “large exposure and preferential treatment.” The panel cited Russian influence operations that aimed to shift public opinion in Romania – and accused TikTok of failing to label the candidate’s videos as election material as required by Romanian law.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who has frequently misled the media over previous disinformation campaigns, said last week that allegations of Russian interference in Romanian elections are unfounded and unsupported, according to the Interfax news agency.
TikTok said it was “categorically false” to claim that it treated Georgescu’s account differently from other candidates. – Bloomberg