Romanian establishment annuls election

On 6 December, Romania’s Constitutional Court decided to cancel the first round of the country’s presidential election in an attempt to prevent right-wing demagogue Călin Georgescu from winning the country’s top office. The decision was cheered by the European Union and liberals. Apparently, Romanians cannot be trusted to vote for the ‘right’ candidate.

The first round of the presidential elections in Romania took place on the 24 November. Independent candidate and outsider Călin Georgescu scored a shock victory, and went into the second round with the largest share of the vote (22.94 percent), against the liberal Save Romania Union (USR) candidate Elena Lasconi (who took 19.18 percent of the vote). 

The second round was scheduled to take place on 8 December, where Georgescu was projected to win comfortably by opinion polls. However, the Romanian Constitutional Court scandalously cancelled the first round results at the last minute, forcing a re-run of the elections next year.

Why? According to the Court, declassified intelligence documents indicated a Russian influence operation to promote Georgescu’s campaign. Georgescu had declared zero campaign expenses and primarily campaigned on Tiktok, whereas the other establishment party candidates spent millions on fully-fledged electoral campaigns. Yet the Court claimed Georgescu won because he supposedly received preferential treatment on Tiktok over other candidates!

This decision was really made out of sheer desperation by the Romanian ruling class, who felt humiliated by the first round results. Both of the parties that form the current National Coalition government – the National Liberal Party (PNL) and Social Democratic Party (PSD) – severely underperformed (with 8.79 percent and 19.15 percent of the vote respectively), and their candidates did not reach the second round.

The PNL has held the presidency for the last 10 years under Klaus Iohannis. Its crisis-ridden tenure has been defined by corruption, scandals, austerity attacks and class struggle. As a result, its candidate came fifth in the election! Discredited and unpopular, it hoped it could peacefully transfer power to its trustworthy coalition partner, the PSD. But the PSD’s failure to make it into the second round – for the first time since the fall of Ceaușescu’s Stalinist regime – left the ruling class with their mouths wide open.

Meanwhile, the fact that Georgescu’s demagogic anti-NATO, anti-EU and anti-Ukraine war campaign propelled him from a fringe figure to the most likely upcoming president shocked the country’s political establishment. They felt threatened because the support behind Georgescu’s demagoguery was, advertently or inadvertently, bringing to the surface the deep-seated anger within Romanian society. 

The bogeyman of ‘Russian interference’

In their editorial about the Romanian elections, titled ‘a wake-up call for democracies’, The Guardian commented:

“Possessing ample accumulated evidence of foul play, the Romanian authorities had no good options. [...] As Russia strives with increasing determination to undermine the practice of democracy in neighbouring states and beyond, Bucharest was right to draw a line in the sand.” [Our emphasis]

This justification has been the recurring thread for the mouthpieces of the Romanian and western ruling classes. But the ‘ample’ evidence they provide is actually very paltry. They claim that 800 Tiktok accounts were suddenly activated by a ‘foreign state’ (which Romanian intelligence claims is Russia) to support Georgescu one month before the elections, and that one account paid £300,000 to accounts supporting Georgescu in the space of a month.

Călin Georgescu was a very obscure figure in Romanian politics in the days before the first round of elections / Image: fair use

The claims made by the Court – backed by the chorus of the EU and NATO – fail to explain two very important things: 1) Why was such ‘serious’ interference only spotted at the very last minute, when Georgescu seemed likely to win the second round of elections; and 2) Why was Georgescu able to win millions of votes ahead of the other mainstream candidates, who had spent millions of euros on their campaigns?

The accusations by the Romanian government and the EU of foreign meddling also stink of hypocrisy. Since their independence, former Soviet Union and Eastern European states have seen their internal affairs and elections meddled in countless times by the EU and western imperialism. 

In the 1996 presidential election in Russia, the United States openly intervened to prevent the Communist Party candidate from winning. In the 2014 Maidan movement in Ukraine, the United States interfered to remove President Yanukovych from power because he favoured relations with Russia instead of the West. Today in Georgia, the EU has refused to recognise the election results because of ‘Russian interference’, despite no evidence having been provided.

The lesson is clear: if the candidate you vote for is not to the liking of the EU and western imperialism, then you will have to vote for another one.

Why Georgescu was winning

Călin Georgescu was a very obscure figure in Romanian politics in the days before the first round of elections, when he barely even made it onto the opinion polls. His shock victory in the first round, above all the parties of the establishment, turned everything upside down. Second round opinion polls were projecting him to get 60-63 percent of the vote. 

The establishment faced the very serious risk of losing the presidency to this political outsider and maverick, who reflects the discrediting of all of the policies of the Romanian ruling class in the eyes of Romanian workers and youth.

Such a major turn of events requires a serious explanation. Călin Georgescu is a right-wing reactionary and demagogue. On his TikTok videos, he presents himself as a devout Christian and a nationalist, who prostrates himself before God and the Orthodox Church, and promotes conservative values. He has on occasion praised the Iron Guard, the Romanian interwar fascist movement. 

But this was secondary to the ruling class. The real danger started when Georgescu, to bolster his nationalist agenda, questioned something no other candidate dared to question: Romania’s expensive involvement in the Ukraine war and its ceaseless prostration before NATO and the EU.

Romania is a very important country from the point of view of NATO’s strategy against Russia. It is one of the alliance’s top defence spenders, and hosts an F-16 training base for Ukrainian pilots and one of two (alongside Poland) ballistic missile defense systems in Europe aimed at Russia. It also aims to expand its NATO base to become the alliance’s largest in Europe.

Every single candidate, from the ‘centre-left’ Social Democratic Party (PSD) to the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), banged the war drum to justify more military spending in order to continue Romania’s effort to defend Ukraine in the ‘war at the border’. 

By pushing for an end to Romania’s involvement in the war, Georgescu was able to present himself as the only candidate that stood for peace. To strengthen his position, he linked Romania’s involvement in the war to the economic problems faced by the workers at home. Below are a few quotes from his most popular TikToks:

To millions of Romanians, a vote for Georgescu was a middle-finger to the entire Romanian establishment / Image: Focus Creștin

“Neither my supporters nor the Romanian people are interested in either Putin or Ukraine. [...] Our problem is our country. There are over 20 percent of people living in poverty in this country. Do you know how many 13-14 year old children there are using drugs in our country? These are the real problems. 10 percent – this is a huge number.” – 6.5 million views

“You insist a lot on this question [of Putin]. Why do you not insist on the problems of the Romanian people, on the problem of poverty, on the problems of disabled people, on the problems of people who have to sell their kidneys [for money]?” – 5.7 million views

“I will not [continue to fund Ukraine], because I support peace and not war.” – 3 million views

With this rhetoric, Georgescu was able to stand out from all of the other candidates, who, like faceless automatons, repeated the same lines about ‘defending Ukraine’ while promoting austerity at home. 

This year alone, the Romanian government has allocated $20.7 billion to defence spending. Meanwhile, large cuts in the public budget are planned which will affect healthcare, education, transport and pensions. Many Romanians can see that the ‘defence’ of their Ukrainian neighbours will have to be paid for out of their own pockets, while Romanian companies are making record profits.

This, and not ‘Russian meddling’, is the reason why Georgescu won the election. To millions of Romanians, a vote for Georgescu was a middle-finger to the entire Romanian establishment.

Anger and disgust at the establishment

The annulment of the election results has further discredited the establishment for millions of voters. Ironically, Georgescu is now presenting himself as the ‘pro-democracy’ candidate, while the PSD and PNL (which supported the Court’s decision) are seen to be using the Court to rerun the election to try and propel their defeated candidates into the second round.

The mood amongst Romanians within the country and in the diaspora has been one of rage at seeing their democratic will trampled on so blatantly. The only thing that has kept them off the streets is Georgescu himself, who has urged for ‘calm and restraint’ and for no street protests to take place. In fact, his TikTok bio says “WE ARE NOT TAKING TO THE STREETS ON 21-22 DECEMBER”. It is clear that he is wary of stirring up forces which would be far beyond his control.

Only last year, the teachers undertook a successful three-week general strike, which fomented a strike wave in the public sector / Image: ETUCE CSEE, Twitter

It is hard to tell what will happen next. As of yet, no updates have been delivered as to when the next round of elections will take place. The pro-EU establishment parties (PSD, PNL, Lasconi’s USR) are moving towards forming a coalition government as a bloc against the parties supporting Georgescu (AUR, SOS, POT). They are even considering standing only one candidate to represent all three parties against Georgescu in the re-run elections!

The establishment is manoeuvring in this manner not out of fear of Georgescu himself or of his far-right credentials, but of the anger in Romanian society that Georgescu is temporarily giving a voice to. But every manoeuvre only discredits them further in the eyes of millions of workers. His ‘irresponsible’ rhetoric – and establishment’s response to it – is bringing the bankruptcy and corruption of the Romanian capitalists to the surface.

Romanian capitalism is in crisis, and this is now manifesting itself in a political crisis that is sowing mass anger, distrust, contempt and disgust of all of the institutions of the establishment.

Georgescu himself is an accidental figure in this process. He is acting to intensify the crisis, but he will be unable to control the anger he bases himself on. It will not be long before this mass radicalisation expresses itself through the avenue of class struggle.

Only last year, the teachers undertook a successful three-week general strike, which fomented a strike wave in the public sector that was put down by the union leaders. The biggest fear of the Romanian ruling class is that when the Romanian working class goes on the move, their whole system will be in peril.

More class struggle is on the horizon for the Romanian capitalists. For the Romanian workers to be successful, they will need to be led in a revolutionary direction.