Who is Romania's Călin Georgescu?

As far-right reactionary movements continue to gain traction across Europe, Romania is no exception. Călin Georgescu, a right-wing independent candidate, has recently been the source of much controversy surrounding the Romanian electoral system. As the first round of the national elections had been annulled, Georgescu was leading with 40% of the vote in opinion polls. He held many nationalist views, running on campaign promises to support local farmers and reduce the nation’s dependency on foreign imports. He has also reportedly referred to Ion Antonescu and many other former World War II Romanian fascist and ultranationalist leaders as “national heroes”. This, alongside his holding many anti-NATO and pro-Russian viewpoints, resulted in him being denounced as a neo-fascist leader by many international news outlets

Photograph: Twitter/RomaniaU93389

The annulment of the first election occurred after allegations emerged of election interference by the Russian government and beliefs that social media may have distorted the election results. He was also investigated for allegedly using over a million euro worth of undeclared campaign funds, and had violated Romanian election laws alongside “founding or supporting fascist, racist, xenophobic, or anti-Semitic organizations, as well as publicly promoting war criminals and extremist ideologies.”, which was in violation of Romanian hate crime laws. After the annulment, he utilized his heavy presence on social media to call for his supporters to protest in Bucharest, which was the nation’s capital. Georgescu has condemned the annulment as a “Attack on democracy” and called it an “officialized coup”. 

Although the elections had been rescheduled to the fourth of may, many of Georgescu’s supporters believe that the annulment of the elections was an unconstitutional and illegal move that violated Romania’s democratic institutions. Many observers would draw parallels from this situation to US presidential candidate Donald Trump’s January 6 march on the Capitol building. This was due to Georgescu’s heavy usage of similar rhetoric, even reportedly stating, “A vision for peace and a vision for how it was America first, Romania has to be first”. With the continued rise of the far left worldwide, many have associated this rise with the economic downturn following the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and the aftershocks from the Ukraine war. This resulted in many incumbent leaders being removed from office as they took the blame for the issues facing many economies.  It just happened to be that most incumbent leaders were members of more liberal left leaning internationalist, which is being used by the right to gather support from many people who after having to bear the heavy economic blows that the trade disruptions caused in recent years, agreed with many of the far right’s parties stances on reducing reliance on international trade. This can be seen across Europe as the AfD won a majority of seats in Germany and with the election victory of centre-right leader Giorgia Meloni in Italy. 

With the continued resurgence of the far right across the world, it remains to be seen whether the internationalist liberal world order will manage to survive this surge in protectionist and nationalist sentiment in its current form or whether it will be forced to adapt to the winds of change.