Romania’s election chaos

The independent candidate Călin Georgescu, dismissed as a complete unknown by pretty much everybody, shot to the top. Then Elena Lasconi of the reformist USR party began steadily rising. As votes from wealthier regions trickled in, Lasconi managed to overtake a battered Ciolacu by the slimmest of margins. By late Monday morning, it was over. Ciolacu, the presumed winner, was out. Georgescu and Lasconi would face off in the final round of the presidential elections.

The initial shock gave way to disbelief. Who was this man Georgescu? How had he managed to fly under the radar and outmaneuver seasoned campaigners and pollsters? As it soon turned out, Georgescu wasn’t as new as he seemed. Investigative journalists had been raising red flags about him for years.

Georgescu is a textbook post-truth politician: a conspiracy theorist, anti-vaxxer, climate change denier, and moon landing sceptic. He openly admires Vladimir Putin, even mimicking him in video clips, complete with judo bouts, horseback rides and icy lake plunges because, apparently, cold water makes you immune to Covid, a disease Georgescu has at other times claimed does not exist. 

He believes in aliens (he’s met one) but not in the war in Ukraine (has anyone actually seen it?) He rants against soft drinks implanting microchips, thinks we must escape “the Matrix”, and preaches a “sovereignist-distributionist” vision of Romania: a bizarre, eco-utopia underpinned by family businesses, communitarian ethics, a place where all Romanians shall sing Kumbaya in harmony under God’s benevolent eye. In his world, there is no place for the belligerent Nato or the nosy EU.

How could over two million Romanians fall for the ramblings of a fraud who rails against “the system”, despite having held key government positions himself? Frustration with the political class, led by Ciolacu and his cronies, is widespread and justified. 

But burning down the pub while you’re still inside because you don’t like the beer is not the answer. Voting for someone who threatens not just the incumbents but the very progress of the past three decades is absurd, especially for Romanians living in the heart of Europe. Or at least that’s what I thought.

But some voters, it seems, had no idea what they were doing. They just felt an itch. Some weren’t even able to correctly recall Georgescu’s name. With his lean build, clenched jaws, and slow, deliberate speech, he might appear trustworthy at first glance. But a quick Google search would have revealed his true nature. Influencers paid to promote him are now mortified by what they have done. A zombified army, mesmerized by viral TikTok videos pushed by troll farms and bot networks, never bothered to check. Only much later have they discovered what he really stands for.

The outcome of the election was so bizarre that the constitutional court decided to review it, particularly the sudden withdrawal just before the election of another candidate, which could potentially have misled voters. Now the court has asked for a recount. Hundreds of young people have demonstrated against the result, dismayed at the prospect of being led by a man who says he “talks to god”. 

If legal proceedings end up confirming this result, then the country will have to hope that Georgescu’s “useful idiots” at least abstain from voting on December 8. If that happens then the majority of usually quite apolitical Romanians will rise, head to the polls, and elect Elena Lasconi as the first woman president of Romania. She would at least be capable of rebuilding the state and addressing its many problems.