Trying to keep up with what passes for ‘democracy’ in Europe can be pretty confusing at times these days.
When last we saw Romania, there were people in the streets angry that their favorite candidate – a ‘right-wing’ or ‘hard-right’ (your choice) – fellow named Calin Georgescu was leading in polls with about 40%. Georgescu had won the first round of elections this past fall, when it was suddenly declared ‘no good,’ nullified and new elections scheduled.
Obviously, the wrong guy had won.
A little over a week ago, Georgescu was on his way to register for the new elections in mid-May when he was snatched up by police, taken to the station for interrogation, and, shortly thereafter, disqualified from running at all by the Romanian election commission.
As expected, Calin Georgescu is banned from the Romanian presidential elections, he was judged as being the wrong sort of candidate and he would have won. Democracy has fallen in Europe. It’s now a dictatorship. The UK is on the same trajectory under Starmer. https://t.co/J2QmhF8ZHP
— Andrew Bridgen (@ABridgen) March 9, 2025
VURT DA FURK
Right out there in front of God and everybody, they knock the frontrunner out of the race and carry on like nothing happened.
There are also some absolutely insane (for how wild it reads) allegations about Gerogescu, the Russians, Bulgarians, Carpathian gangs, and I don’t know who else that supposedly Romanian prosecutors are ‘taking seriously.’ Reading about the rumored goings-on is like plunging headfirst into a novel written by an acid-tripping vampire in a Transylvanian castle with a Jason Bourne obsession – it’s that convoluted.
I kid you not.
…Semeniuc presents himself as the leader of the Union of Subcarpathian Ruthenians of Romania, a group set up in 2000 to promote the ethnic group’s culture. His Facebook profile has a Ruthenian flag and his name spelt in Cyrillic text.
Dinu claims to lead a group calling itself the Vlad The Impaler Command, named after the 15th century Transylvanian nobleman who was the inspiration for Dracula. In Romania he is often associated with being a leader who fought against rich and corrupt landowners.
Prosecutors say it claims 10,000 followers, while a group member told RFE/RL it had several thousand.
…The first man, who allegedly took the payoff, was Petro Ghetsko, a Ukrainian citizen who faces a 20-year jail sentence in Ukraine for endangering national security. He also claims to lead a Ruthenian group and to be prime minister of a nonexistent “Sub-Carpathian Republic” in western Ukraine.
There’s even a still-ambulatory 102-year-old Romanian general involved.
I mean, GET OUT.
It seems this caused a momentary shortage of candidates, particularly on the right. I’m assuming it’s because everyone had lined up behind Georgescu.
The shortage continued this weekend as Romania’s Central Election Bureau (BEC) shot down another candidate who’d stepped into the breach.
…The Central Election Bureau, or BEC, rejected Diana Sosoaca’s bid, which was filed on Thursday in the capital, Bucharest. She said she will appeal the bureau’s decision, which has to be submitted to the Constitutional Court within 24 hours.
Their justification for doing so was kind of interesting, though, in a raise-the-eyebrows way. It seems Ms Sosoaca is not an EU or NATO fan.
This is not an acceptable viewpoint for a presidential candidate to have in the BEC’s opinion.
…The bureau said in its decision that it barred the pro-Russia Sosoaca, a former lawyer and leader of the far-right nationalist S.O.S. Romania party, from entering the race on the same grounds that she was excluded from last year’s annulled election. The CCR argued that her public discourse, including opposition to Romania’s European Union and NATO memberships, made her unfit to uphold the constitutional obligations of the presidency.
To American ears, that translates to the EU calling the shots in Romania’s ‘democracy’…doesn’t it?
Does to mine.
The essence of democracy is the ability to question power—when that is restricted, it ceases to be democracy.
— Mario L. Vox (@MarioLVox) March 17, 2025
This is all very intriguing.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE
It turns out another ‘far-right’ fellow filed and was approved by the BEC – somehow. George Simion, leader of the country’s most popular ‘far-right’ party – Alliance of Uniting Romanians (AUR) – is also under investigation. He has also been accused of being a ‘tool of Putin’ but somehow made the cut with the BEC.
Maybe they didn’t want to take a chance on disqualifying another ‘right-wing’ candidate and look too obvious?
Placing fourth in the now-annulled November 2024 elections, he’s hanging on by a thread with authorities and starting to look like the only game in town.
Romania’s electoral body Saturday rejected the candidacy of a controversial far-right politician in the presidential election rerun in May, but approved George Simion, the leader of the country’s most popular far-right party.
…Simion, 38, who is under criminal investigation for inciting violence after last year’s first-round winner Calin Georgescu was barred this week from entering the May rerun, has expressed concerns that he could also be excluded from the upcoming race.
“Now let’s see if we can pass the CCR and return to democracy,” he wrote on Facebook. Simion — who came fourth in the first round of last year’s race with 13.8% of the vote — has denied any wrongdoing and claimed the investigation is politically motivated.
“I risk being subjected to the same abusive treatment … If they eliminated two, they think they can eliminate a third,” he told a news conference Friday after filing his candidacy.
Simion has stirred controversy on occasion. He campaigned for reunification with neighboring Moldova, which has barred him from entering the country. He is also banned from neighboring Ukraine, where authorities cited security concerns.
He has zoomed to the top of the polls.
Romania bans right-wing populist from running for president only for a different right-wing populist replacing him to be the highest in the polls. https://t.co/aZPMAB0Eke
— Misheru Katorin 🇳🇱 (@MKatorin) March 17, 2025
The EU centrists have their flag wavers out already, as we have seen in every election so far.
…On Saturday, thousands of demonstrators gathered in central Bucharest waved European Union and Romanian flags at a pro-EU rally to counter what the organizers described as a “wave of sovereignism and ultranationalism” that “threatens our unity.”
“We are here to encourage each other because it is a very troubled period in Europe, the extremes are on the rise, especially the far right,” Mihai Calin, an actor at the National Theatre Bucharest, told The Associated Press. “The impairment of Europe is underway. … People are in danger of discouragement, disappointment. So we need to gather together to reunite.”
The BEC also approved the candidacy of pro-Western Elena Lasconi, leader of the Save Romania Union party, who was set to face Georgescu in the scheduled runoff last year.
It’s going to be nip and tuck…
A hard-right candidate is seen leading in the first round of Romania’s presidential election rerun in May, according to a survey on Monday, in a vote that will determine whether Bucharest keeps to its pro-European course of recent years.However, the survey by AtlasIntel also showed the centrist mayor of Bucharest, Nicusor Dan, was likely to defeat whichever of two far-right candidates ends up contesting the election in the second and decisive round.
…Romania’s hard-right parties generally take a pro-Russian line in foreign policy and oppose providing military aid to neighbouring Ukraine, a stance that would put Bucharest at odds with the European Union and NATO if either Simion or Gavrila became president.
…especially if Simion gets too popular.
