With the focus on the foreign policy implications of Romania’s 2024 elections, it has largely gone unnoticed that three separate political parties espousing anti-vaccination narratives entered parliament. In addition, an independent candidate who denies the existence of the Covid-19 virus made it to the second round of the presidential elections, prior to its annulment by the courts.
These are medical populists — a political style that exploits the fear of illness and poor medical treatment. This is not limited to Romania, but it is particularly vulnerable — healthcare spending per capita is the lowest in the European Union (EU), the poor are badly affected by medical staff and treatment shortages, and a rising tide of disinformation fosters distrust and conspiracy explanations.
The independent nationalist Călin Georgescu is at first sight a curious beneficiary of this trend. A scientist and career bureaucrat with experience in sustainable development, he previously worked at the United Nations, the Club of Rome, and for prior Romanian administrations. He is, by any assessment, an insider and thus a seemingly unlikely populist.
By 2024, he had twice been nominated for prime minister by the radical right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) before standing as an independent presidential candidate after splitting with the party.
Georgescu’s discourse stands in stark contrast to his technocratic past. He now embraces medical populism: a tripartite approach that rests on distorted claims about health policy, the denial of scientific knowledge, and suggestions that the “Establishment” are deliberately endangering the health of the population.
In 2017 Georgescu appeared at a conference in Timișoara and attacked the “falseness of the medical system” and suggested that “If there is no fear, there is no control”, labeling viruses as “artificially created enemies” to make the people obedient.
During the pandemic, he suggested that cold water was the best prevention for the coronavirus and later appeared on a podcast stating that Jesus was the only treatment needed, and arguing that no one had seen the virus. He has also written the introduction to the Romanian edition of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s book about the pandemic, although rumors of an appearance in Bucharest from the US politician have since been denied.
In the years and months preceding the parliamentary elections, AUR, SOS Romania, and the new Party for Young People (POT) have all adopted science-denying stances. POT, the party outwardly supporting Georgescu’s candidacy, has focused largely on anti-vaccination narratives. SOS and AUR have each spent the years following the onset of the pandemic shifting from anti-mask mandates to notions of a “plandemic” and argue that God is not vaccinated.
With falling trust even in childhood vaccinations, Romania highlights how a population for whom traditional political parties, short on trust and slow to address the problems of the healthcare system, may turn to alternate approaches. In such circumstances, medical populist arguments garner support.
Romanian’s trust in the media is very low, clearing the way for citizens to “internalize global conspiracist narratives . . . and erroneous information over arguments presented by the scientific community or by authorities.”
This is an issue across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), where populist discourse is broadening with those in the medical and scientific professions increasingly the targets. This has been seen in Bulgaria and Poland, where after the spread of disinformation, doctors were attacked and vaccination centers set ablaze during the pandemic.
As in Romania, Austria has seen several politicians and parties utilizing medical populist stances since 2020. The ultra-nationalist Freedom Party has long offered critical views of the measures introduced in the pandemic, but others such as Madeleine Petrovic and MFG Austria — People Freedom Fundamental Rights have also begun to present themselves as a voice for those who distrust the official accounts.
In Hungary, Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party opted not to employ conspiracies regarding the spread of the coronavirus, but rather to present themselves as the protectors of the people. However, after years of promoting conspiracism about the West and internal enemies alike, it was difficult to dispel those aimed at the regime’s own vaccination campaign. As in Romania, theories aimed at the Hungarian-born Jewish philanthropist and Holocaust survivor George Soros were particularly common, with Soros having long been a target of Fidesz’s rhetoric.
Anti-vaccine and health conspiracies are no longer the preserve of fringe groups. With growing use from those inside the political system, this style of politics is appearing increasingly polished and finding support at the ballot box. Without dedicated efforts to combat disinformation and improve healthcare, the CEE region is vulnerable to those who exploit on the dissatisfaction and distrust of the population.
Of course, anti-scientific discourse is a common feature of discourse across the democratic world but it appears to thrive when blended with nationalism and low institutional trust. As populism was the phenomenon of the 2010s, medical populism may prove to be the same for the 2020s.
Jack Daniel Dean is a Ph.D. candidate at University College London’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies, where he researches Central and Eastern Europe. He primarily works on Romanian politics, but his research interests address the history and politics of the region more broadly.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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