Contested Romania tries again, the 'hinge' country between East and West returns to the vote
There is a repeat of the first round that was resoundingly annulled by the Constitutional Court in December and the exclusion of the then winner, Calin Georgescu. But still leading in the polls is the populist and Eurosceptic right, now led by George Simion
3' min read
3' min read
Romania is trying again. After several 'false starts', Romanian voters will try to elect a new president. Today they are voting in a country wearied by a triple crisis: political, institutional and economic. Presidential elections in an EU country evidently 'watched' by Moscow and Brussels. Romania is a 'hinge country', as they say in Moscow, and plays a double game, internally and internationally.
In the first case in a contest between democrats and conservatives, albeit polluted by a nationalism that pervades both camps. In the second, some observers have revived the pattern of a proxy war between Russia and Europe, determined not to give up their 'influence' on Bucharest. And the annulled vote, in that first round in November 2024 unexpectedly won by the pro-Russian Calin Georgescu, has generated growing tension, inside and outside the Romanian political palaces.
Now the favourite is George Simion, 38, leader of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (Aur, right-wing): he is a Eurosceptic nationalist, with anti-EU and anti-NATO positions. He currently leads the polls with 30-34% of the vote. The US has sent a pool of 'observers'.
The cancelled November 2024 vote
.The latest outburst of tension dates back to 10 March, in Bucharest, which became the scene of demonstrations and clashes after the electoral office rejected, by rejecting an appeal, the candidature of Georgescu, a right-wing, pro-Russian nationalist, in today's elections. He is the key man in the Romanian vote: the stone guest who cannot stand again today but who in the first round, last November, had unexpectedly defeated his competitors: he obtained 22%, just a few percentage points more than Elena Lasconi, pro-European, who stood at 19%.
The alleged irregularities in his campaign, played out mainly on social media, led the Constitutional Court to annul the election. This paradoxically strengthened the number of pro-Romanian Romanians, and thus Georgescu's position, close to 45%, according to the latest polls, despite being unable to stand.
