Romania at a Croassroads

1. The European Parliament Election (9th June 2024)

The votes were cast for f the candidates competing for the 33 seats allocated to Romania in the EP (based on proportional representation) on the same day as the local elections. For this reason, citizens’ turnout at the polls was higher than in previous years – out of 18,016,674 registered Romanians, 9,445,771 voted (4,856,000 women and 4,589,771 men).

On these lists we discovered several alliances, like the grand coalition Coaliția Națională pentru România, including the two main governing parties – Partidul Social Democrat (centre-left) and Partidul Național Liberal (centre-right), and a right-leaning alliance from the opposition named Alianța Dreapta Unită, composed of Uniunea Salvați România (centre-right), Forța Dreptei (centre-right to right-wing), Partidul Mișcarea Populară (right-wing).

An unpleasant and surely undesirable aspect of the national political sphere reflected in these lists is the underrepresentation of female voices in politics – out of the total number of candidates (494), there are only 165 women (33% of which only 14% were placed in an eligible position). It is important to mention in this particular context that while various extreme right (AUR, SOS, PRM) or left (România Socialistă) or very conservative (PP, AD) parties do include a relatively high percentage of women on their lists, they will not truly represent the rights, liberties and interests of Romanian women as they support anti-feminist and profoundly misogynistic policies like restricting abortion access, which goes against gender equality. The only political party that adopted a 40% gender quota by statute – Reînnoim Proiectul European al României – and relied on the “zipper” list, did not meet the 5% threshold necessary in the Romanian system to enter the EP.

In the 9th Legislature, Romania ranked last in terms of female MEPs (15%), with 5 women out of 33 MEPs. In this year’s election, six female parliamentarians were elected, accounting for 18% of all the representatives of our country. The 33 MEPs are organised as follows: 11 from PSD (PES affiliates), 8 from PNL (EPP group), 6 from AUR (joined ECR), 3 from ADU (USR is part of Renew, and PMP is in EPP), 2 from UDMR (part of EPP), 2 from SOS (who were not allowed in the ID group), and the independent Nicolae Ștefănuță (member of The Greens).

For many election watchers the entry of these extremist parties in the EP, while unwished, was not entirely surprising, as these politicians garnered support during the pandemic by promoting anti-mask and anti-vaccine narratives,following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and by capitalizing on public discontent.

2. The Local Elections (9th June 2024)

Our most recent local elections were conducted across the country in order to elect mayors, county council presidents, and both county and local councilors. The turnout at the polls reached 50%, as 9,043,191 (4,667,070 women and 4,376,121 men) out of 18,079,046 registered citizens cast their vote.

In terms of gender equality, the lists consisted of only 24% women, the percentage of elected women in local administration being even lower, around 14%. At the town halls, of the 31% of women found on the lists, only 6% won their election. Among the total 3186 Romanian town halls, only 214 women hold the position of mayor (representing 7%), and in the municipalities, only in Câmpulung Muscel, Craiova, Sibiu, and Aiud. At the county level, only Sibiu and Botoșani are led by a female president.

According to the list we obtained, most of the mayors are from the Social Democratic Party – PSD (52.64%), some of the others being from the National Liberal Party – PNL (35.53%), the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania – UDMR (6.28%), independent candidates (1.35%), the Alliance for the Union of Romanians – AUR (0.94%), the National Coalition for Romania – CNR (0.91%), the United Right Alliance – ADU (0.88%). The highest number of local councilors also belongs to PSD (41.42%), while the rest are part of PNL (32.12%), AUR (8.85%), UDMR (6.33%), ADU (2.41%), SOS (0.37%), Renewing Romania’s European Project – REPER (0.14%) and others. The distribution of county councilors by party is similar: PSD secured 38.94% of the total seats, followed by PNL (30.79%), AUR (11.88%), UDMR (7.77%), ADU (5.61%). PSD also has the most county council presidents (58.54%), then PNL (26.83%), UDMR (9.76%), and CNR (4.88%).

Even if the results differ quite a bit from one region to another, a general trend of increased support for ultranationalists can be observed.

3. The Presidential Election (24th November 2024)

The election that changed the fate of Romania took place at the end of November. The first round of the Presidential election delivered unforeseen results, creating a wave of shock and despair in public opinion at home and abroad that increased with each passing day, alongsidethe popularity of the undemocratic and profoundly Eurosceptic discourse.

Some preliminary specifications are required before moving on to analyzing the situation. Regarding the representation of women on the lists, female candidates made up of 21% (3 out of 14 politicians), as two extremists were removed – the candidate Anamaria Gavrilă (POT leader) was rejected by the Central Electoral Bureau and Diana Iovanovici Șoșoacă (SOS leader) was banned by the Constitutional Court of Romania (due to her positions against the Euro-Atlantic structures of which our country is a part).

All the opinion polls conducted ahead of the election placed Marcel Ciolacu (the current Prime Minister and leader of PSD), together with either George Simion (AUR leader) or Elena Lasconi (USR leader), in the second round. The independent candidate Călin Georgescu (“CG”), previously associated with AUR, had lagged far behind several other candidates, all the polls placing him at a maximum of 4%, but, as it turns out, he had gained ground through an extensive social media campaign just a few days before the elections, mostly conducted on TikTok.

Citizens’ turnout was 52.55%, quite high for the national standard, with 9,465,257 (4,775,426 females and 4,689,831 males) voters out of 18,008,480 casting their ballot. People were watching the online counting of votes with bated breath the whole night after the election, the majority’s concern growing as CG’s votes increased.

The shocking result of the Putinist CG (22% of the votes, most of his votes coming from the large diaspora living in Western European countries such as: Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Austria; the bulk of his voters are of various ages and generally uneducated) in the first round of election has plunged Romania into one of the most intense crises since the fall of communism, raising justified concerns about the country’s national security and stability within the EU and NATO. It was the first time that a PSD candidate failed to reach the second round, with Ciolacu coming third (with 19.14% of the vote). Lasconi, who faced a strong wave of misogynistic attitudes during the campaign, came second (with 19.18%, winning in most municipalities, in five counties in the country, in the diaspora, in Eastern European states, in Asia, Africa, and the Americas), was scheduled to face CG on 8th December.

Although CG presents himselfl as an anti-system candidate, over time he held numerous leadership positions in the state, being propelled into office by the communists Malița and Bleahu. Unfortunately, he mixed various conspiratorial theories and anachronistic ideas with a more powerful and destructive element – the legionary speeches, an open door to hate that woke a sleeping giant – ultranationalist demonstrations.

One day before the National Day, several people attended the anniversary of the death of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (leader of the Legionary Movement, one of the bloodiest far right manifests, responsible for the death of around 300,000 Jewish women, children and men as well as for various political assassinations of great intellectuals), where they conducted a religious ceremony, gave discriminatory speeches, waved legionary flags, and performed the Nazi salute (prohibited by the OUG no. 31/2002).

While the far right phenomenon was suppressed under Communist rule, unfortunately, it has never fully disappeared from the political and social landscape. In 2021, when participating in a protest against the restrictions imposed in the context of the pandemic, CG delivered a speech by Ion Antonescu (whose regime was complicit in the Holocaust, combining ethnic cleansing with pogroms and mass murders like the Odessa massacre, and deportations to Transnistria), word for word, ending it with the Nazi salute.

Although in every public appearance CG made statements that either profoundly shocked or amused a large part of the population, nevertheless, the number of his supporters increased every day. Some of the ideas he expressed are: “There will be no more political parties in this country, none of them, because our ancestors are alive, they are with us”, “Women are not meant to lead”, “Feminism is a dirt”, “Cesarean delivery is a tragedy as it breaks the divine thread”, “There is no Covid; no one has ever seen it”, “The compulsory military service must be reintroduced”, “The allowance for a Ukrainian child is 3700 lei, while a Romanian child gets only 248 lei”, “Ukraine is an artificially created state”, “Putin is a great patriot; you can’t find such leadership anywhere else in Europe”, “Romania’s chance lies in Russian wisdom”, “While Russia is the light and the soul, the EU is the mafia”, “The EU is a worthless club”, “I’m glad we didn’t enter Schengen”, “NATO is the weakest alliance on earth”, “The Deveselu military base is a shame”, “The UN is a collapsing institution, controlled by oligarchs and doing whatever the IMF says”, “Romania is colonised by Brussels and Washington”, “Romanians are enslaved by the state, by corporations and by the West”, “Codreanu and Antonescu were heroes”, “Proto-Romanian is the mother of the Latin language”, “Water is not H2O, but information; once put in plastic bottles, it loses all its information”, “Nanochips from juices enter our body just like in laptops”.

Frightened by the rise of this political figure who praises legionnaires and Putinism, thousands of students, intellectuals, artists and other public figures participated in peaceful pro-European demonstrations throughout the country (in București, Iași, Brașov, Sibiu and Timișoara) and in the diaspora. Many of the chants and posters were a reference to the December Revolution, like: “Your children are free”, as a response to the “Our children will be free” message from 1989, 35 years later. CG, his team and followers threatened the young people present at these demonstrations.

On 4th December, President Klaus Iohannis decided to declassify and release pertinent intelligence findings on malicious foreign operations regarding these elections. The reports, coming from MAE (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), SRI (Romanian Intelligence Service), and SIE (External Intelligence Service) revealed the use of illicit funding, the amplification of digital campaigns, and cyberattacks in the presidential elections. According to these files, there was unprecedented and substantial foreign meddling in democratic processes and institutions as part of an ongoing effort by Russia to weaken Romania’s steadfast adherence to Euro-Atlantic principles and membership.

During his illegal campaign (CG declared he spent 0 lei), he gained around 300,000 followers on TikTok, his clips, accompanied by dramatic music, fake news, attacks on his rivals, went viral on this platform. Instagram accounts, alongside Facebook groups and pages containing these videos have also popped up.Many bots and trolls have been highly active in the comment sections, a behaviour similar to other Russian tactics across Eastern Europe.

Undoubtedly, people’s frustration with the prolonged dominance of PSD and PNL (in a grand coalition since 2021 that are seen as incompetent and corrupt) contributed to the increase of support for CG and other extremists like Șoșoacă, Gavrilă and Simion, who often spread misinformation on social media, making their content appealing to several citizens. Other factors that contributed to his high levels of support are the lending of PSD votes to the AUR candidate and the misuse of a TikTik reaction (balance and verticality), created by PNL, which was taken over by CG.

However, the Constitutional Court annulled the first round of the election on grounds that a serious violation of the principle of free and fair elections had taken place, as a flawed electoral process cannot underlie a functioning democratic state. It led to the postponement of the runoff, the interim stay of the current president, causing various far-right supporters’ violent protests against the establishment. Some of these people attacked the journalists, displayed Communist flags, and screamed injurious slogans, a lot of which were promoting discriminatory practices and religious fanaticism.

4. The Parliamentary Elections (1st December 2024)

In the meantime, on our National Day, parliamentary elections had been held. The participation of Romanians in the election was quite high, 52.50%; out of 18,008,555 registered people, 9,455,072 voted (4,821,688 women and 4,633,384 men).

Studying the distribution of the two sexes on the lists, we see that female politicians constitute only 35% of the candidates registered on the lists (3,755/10,726). In the current Parliament, out of 465 senators and deputies, only 101 are women (21.7%), 26 in the Senate and 75 in the Chamber of Deputies. In the previous legislature, women made only 15.40% of all the 466 parliamentarians (72 – 7 senators and 65 deputies). In the old Government, the percentage of women holding the position of minister was 30% (only 6 out of 20). Currently, out of 17 ministries, only two are held by women (the percentage being 11.76%).

These elections brought another victory to the largest party in Romania – PSD, although with the lowest percentage so far (22.30%). It was followed by AUR (18.30%), PNL (14.28%), USR (12.26%), SOS (7.76%), POT (6.39%), UDMR (6.38%). Sadly, several pro-European parties did not exceed the 5% threshold set by the legislation (REPER, SENS, DREPT, FD). As the votes of AUR, SOS and POT combined represented almost a third of the electorate, we witnessed a major shift in the Romanian political landscape.

Following the election, PSD, together with PNL and UDMR (also supported by small ethnic minorities) reached an agreement on 23rd December regarding a coalition government. The purpose was to counteract the rising influence of hard-right factions.

Conclusion

This trend of the rise of far-right parties in Romania, while not as pronounced as in some other countries, can be attributed to a mix of economic, social, and political factors, as well as the broader European context.

After the fall of Communism, like other post-Communist countries, Romania faced significant political and economic upheaval, including the strong desire for EU and NATO integration. While Romania embraced democracy and necessary reforms, ultranationalist sentiments occasionally found expression through small far-right groups. In the aftermath of communism, political extremism found fertile ground, often manifesting itself in intolerance towards minority populations. In recent years, these parties have shifted focus, leveraging contemporary issues (like corruption, high rate of inflation, restrictive measures in the pandemic, sending funds to Ukraine) to appeal to voters dissatisfied with the status quo.

Living in this highly polarized society, we should try to reconcile the various positions, for it is our duty to do everything in our power to safeguard our rights, the rule of law and all the European values we share with the other member and candidate states. Romania must be dedicated to protecting its democracy for it is the only way to honor the sacrifices of our ancestors and the memory of the martyrs of the 1989 Revolution.