(Bloomberg) -- It’s rare when a presidential frontrunner thinks the moon landings were staged. Fewer would say soft drinks include microchips or dispute the chemical formula for water. But Calin Georgescu says he has a “calling” to become Romania’s next head of state — and he could well win.
The victory of the nationalist Georgescu in the first round of presidential elections last month shocked Romania and its allies. A vaccine skeptic with warm words for Russian President Vladimir Putin, Georgescu was polling in the single digits ahead of the vote. If he pulls off another win in Sunday’s run-off ballot, it could change the orientation of a key member of NATO.
It’s a sensitive moment for Europe’s eastern flank. Romania shares the European Union’s longest border with war-torn Ukraine, to which it has donated a Patriot missile battery and opened its ports to allow the export of Kyiv’s grain. Georgescu has questioned the benefits of NATO membership and advocated for the country to adopt a policy of “neutrality” towards its neighbor, all while praising Putin as one of the world’s “few true leaders.”
To Romania’s mainstream, his rise is as unfathomable as the esoteric theories he expounds in near-daily TikTok videos. Although Georgescu declared no spending whatsoever on his campaign, those videos were key to his first round win. They railed at anything mainstream and, like pro-Russian forces across Europe, tapped into deep resentment at unaccountable elites.
The viral clips led to a tussle between Bucharest, the European Union and social media giant TikTok about whether foreign interference had boosted Georgescu’s chances. Romania blamed Russia for an alleged hybrid attack. The candidate was so obscure that his name was the most searched on Google in Romania a day after his first-round win. The country’s constitutional court narrowly avoided decreeing a re-run of the ballot, which analysts say would have given the fringe candidate the aura of a martyr.
But Georgescu has already given himself that mantle. In a video address after the first round, he attributed his surge in support to a holy miracle, namely “the law of Jesus Christ’s wonderful multiplication: five loaves of bread and two fish that multiplied into 2.1 million” votes.
He’s also doubled down on the mystery ahead of Sunday’s vote. Instead of seeking to lure more voters, Georgescu refused to take journalists’ questions — including those of Bloomberg News — and limited his appearances on social media.
Georgescu has since backtracked on some of his previous pro-Russian rhetoric, pledging to keep Romania in the Western fold. Nevertheless, his record guarantees that the run-off against opposition leader Elena Lasconi will turn into a clash between pro-European and pro-Russian worldviews.
His praise for Putin must be seen in a context in which many Romanians express preferences for strong leaders, and not only those in Russia, said political scientist Oana Popescu-Zamfir, director of the Global Focus Centre think tank in the Romanian capital. Georgescu’s appeal may bear the resemblance to what Viktor Orban has built in neighboring Hungary: nationalism, protectionism and “no longer being a loyal ally” to the West.
Georgescu’s victory would make Romania a more difficult and unpredictable member of NATO, said Andrius Tursa, a Vilnius-based analyst at Teneo. However, Georgescu’s attempts to present himself as a close ally of President-elect Donald Trump could mean relations with Washington would remain cordial, according to Tursa.
Mainstream to Margins and Back
Georgescu may be a relative unknown but he is no outsider to Romanian politics. An agricultural engineer, he has for years represented the country at international organizations.
Nor is this his first attempt at running for office. Georgescu had close ties to the country’s main nationalist party, the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, which had touted him as its candidate for prime minister twice over the past four years. However, his statements about Romania’s fascist past, including praise for the country’s World War II Nazi-allied leaders, proved too toxic even for Romania’s far-right.
AUR leader George Simion was also seen as a frontrunner in the presidential race, and his opposition to aid for Ukraine worried Romania’s allies. He has, however, criticized Putin and referred to the Russian leader as a war criminal. Simion said he was shocked by Georgescu’s victory but decided to endorse him for the second round of the ballot, saying that he lost because he was too moderate.
“Everyone was saying that I’m the wolf and I’m the extremist,” Simion told foreign journalists in Bucharest this week. “I’m the boy who cried wolf.”
The country’s far-right may now be fractured, but it is growing. After last week’s parliamentary elections, a third of the Romania’s lawmakers come from nationalist parties. They made up just 5% of the last parliament. That puts Romania, which has preserved its party system for more than three decades, in the same camp as a growing number of European countries experiencing a far-right surge.
Their rise has been aided by the fact that Romania’s two most established parties, the Social Democrats and the Liberals, have governed together for years, allowing radicals to monopolize the opposition vote. Disillusioned voters were keen for a fresh face, in a country with the EU’s highest inflation rate and increasing regional inequality.
But it remains to be seen whether Georgescu’s “miracle” of a social media campaign can pay off twice.“If we stand united, the Russian robots on TikTok cannot destroy our democracy,” Georgescu’s challenger Lasconi said this week.
Many voters only found out about Georgescu’s conspiratorial stances after the first round, and not necessarily to his advantage. Some influencers who promoted him later apologized to their followers.
Georgescu may no longer have the advantage of surprise, but the fight between him and Lasconi is still expected to be a tight one. On Wednesday, Romania’s mainstream parties effectively endorsed her by calling on voters to choose a candidate, who will keep Romania on a pro-EU path as they signed a coalition agreement to form a government.
If he wins, Georgescu’s softer stance toward Russia and calls for self-sufficiency would come with risks. Georgescu, who holds a doctorate in soil science, campaigned for Romania to wind down its dependency on imports, particularly of food. But the country’s development is mostly foreign-funded with billions of euros in investments every year. His rise has already shaken some investors and the Bucharest Stock Exchange’s benchmark index lost 4%. The state’s borrowing costs surged the day after the results of the first round were announced.
To add to the controversy, Georgescu told Politico this week that he favors nationalization of major companies that were once privatized and wants to “put Romania first” in any discussions with investors. In keeping with his use of the phrase, he also told a Romanian TV station this week he is “ultra pro-Trump.”
“It’s hard to understand why people are now considering this 360 degree change of policies, especially if we look at the major benefits that Romania got from the EU and NATO membership in the past decades,” said Cristian Popa, a member of Romania’s central bank board. “I can’t even imagine how negative the consequences of this switch would be for the country.”
Popescu-Zamfir, the political scientist, believes the wave of anger is genuine. “People are willing to accept any kind of change, even if it’s burning down the house while you’re in it,” she said. As many Romanians see it, she said, “if you vote for continuity, nothing will come of it, but if you vote for him it’s a 50-50 chance of change.”
--With assistance from Patrick Donahue and Demetrios Pogkas.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
