Romania’s first-round presidential election on November 24 boils down to one thing: who comes second?
The big question is which of the 13 presidential candidates makes it to the December 8 runoff and what it will mean for Romania at a time when the war in neighboring Ukraine is at a crucial stage, and as Donald Trump prepares to take office and seek a peace agreement.
Nationalist George Simion, 38, has consistently polled second place in (not very reliable) opinion surveys and is considered to have the best chance, partly thanks to support from Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu who is expected to come first, but not win an outright majority of 50.1%-plus. Ciolacu’s campaign views Simion as an easier candidate to defeat in round two.
Trump’s victory has given Europeans skeptics, like Simion, a boost. So what effect might that have on Romania’s foreign policy.
Romania has been solidly pro-European under President Klaus Iohannis, who is stepping down after a maximum two terms in office, but that could change if nationalist parties score well, positioning themselves as defenders of traditional values against what they portray as corrupt elites and foreign influences.
Analysts say that Simion’s Alliance for the Unification of Romania AUR party and the Euroskeptic SOS party headed by Diana Sosoaca, who was banned from running by the Constitutional Court in a controversial ruling, could win up to 40% of the votes, making them a powerful minority in parliament and calling into question Romania’s commitment to the European Union (EU) and NATO.
The nationalists have an ally in Ciolacu who would like to run against Simion in the second round as it would then be easy to portray him as the respectable pro-European candidate, an advantage he wouldn’t have against pro-European candidates. He has already publicly defended Simion against allegations that the AUR leader is a Russian agent. Simion denies this.
The 38-year-old former football ultra has morphed into a far-right politician. He created the populist AUR party in 2019 which is hoping to gain traction in the December 1 parliamentary elections if its candidate makes it into the runoff.
AUR came from nowhere to win 20% of the parliamentary vote in 2020 elections, riding a wave of frustration about pandemic restrictions and resentment about mainstream parties. It represented a desire to reassert national identity in an increasingly European Romania.
Simion, who in 2022 grabbed then Energy Minster Virgil Popescu by the neck in parliament, has toned down his extremist rhetoric during the campaign. But he has a major handicap. He has been declared persona non grata in Ukraine and Moldova. Since Romania’s president oversees the country’s foreign policy, a ban on traveling to key regional states would be a major handicap for a Romanian leader.
The AUR party opposed aid to Ukraine in the European Parliament and Simion has been associated with Kremlin-style Russian divisive rhetoric in Ukraine and Moldova
Simion says the small Romanian minority in Ukraine is oppressed and argues Romania has territorial claims on Ukraine, repeating recent Kremlin propaganda.
Among the other candidates, the three most pro-European all face a simple, arithmetic problem. Votes are split between them, making it hard for any one of them to reach the runoff and prevent a Ciolacu-Simion final round. It’s also unclear which has the greatest chance of defeating Ciolacu. There have been calls for one of them to drop out to avoid jeopardizing Romania’s pro-Atlantic path, but to no avail.
Polls suggest that mayor of the small town of Campulung-Muscel, Elena Lasconi, is polling higher, but only just. Promising to clean up corruption and cronyism, Lasconi scores high on the sincerity scale but has been criticized for major gaps in her foreign policy knowledge.
On paper, former Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca looks like a strong candidate. A former army Chief of Staff, he served as defense minister and prime minister. He is a veteran of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also the chairman of the center-right National Liberal Party, the second-largest party in parliament, and has US backing.
But he lacks charisma and is widely seen as the successor to the current steady but unpopular Iohannis, the outgoing ethnic-German president,
The other candidate in with a chance is former NATO deputy secretary-general Mircea Geoana who began with high poll ratings, but has fallen behind after a series of missteps and the absence of a party machine to back him. Although qualified and eloquent, voters are unsure whether he is aligned with the Social Democrats or pro-European parties.
The two-round presidential elections have greater significance since they set the stage for the parliamentary vote. Whoever scores well on November 24 has a better chance of winning seats in the two-chamber legislature.
The outcome is likely to be another coalition government, but the major question is whether the nationalists will enter the government for the first time ever.
Alison Mutler is a British journalist who has been working in Romania for almost 35 years. She was the Associated Press bureau chief for 25 years, and was part of a team that covered the Romanian revolution for the British TV channel, ITN. For the past five years, she has worked for the Romanian-English website Universul.net and has been its director for the past three years.
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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