The first round of the presidential elections took place in Romania on
November 24, with a decidedly surprising result compared to theforecasts that gave the Social Democratic Party of the outgoing
president Laus Iohannis as one of the favorites. The independent
candidate of the extreme right, Calin Georgescu, obtained 22.4% of the
votes, surpassing all his rivals. Unexpectedly, in second place and
therefore admitted to the run-off, Elena Lasconi (19.7%) of the
conservative party, strongly supported in the electoral campaign among
Romanian immigrants, belonging to Usr (Save Romania Union), who by a
handful of votes managed to surpass the Social Democratic Prime
Minister, Marcel Ciolacu (19.5%).
The country is going through a deep economic and social crisis and
distrust in the institutions is growing, also due to high inflation. And
this while industry and investments are increasingly in crisis due to
the repercussions in the country of the negative economic situation
experienced by the German economy. When it happened, it led to a fall in
investments and a crisis in many productive sectors, aggravated by the
effects that the Ukrainian war has on the country. Observers of what is
happening in Romania often overlook the fact that the country has the
longest border with the war theater of any other state in the Union and
weapons and supplies to Ukraine, goods leaving and entering the country,
pass through Romanian territory and ports, causing many problems, as was
evident in the case of the export of Ukrainian wheat which gave rise to
below-cost sales on the Romanian market that seriously damaged Romanian
farmers, causing considerable social unrest and violent protests.
Furthermore, the presence in Ukraine of border areas inhabited by
Romanians, such as Bukovina, and the particular harassment to which
these populations are subjected also from the point of view of religious
and linguistic freedom, mean that knowledge of the actual management of
social relations existing in Ukraine is experienced with particular
intensity and sensitivity by the Romanian population. Hence a growing
general rejection in the country towards the support for Ukraine, its
nationalist war and a deep aversion to the policies of the Zelensky
government.
The governing parties were counting on bringing at least one of the
candidates to the ballot in order to prolong the substantial domination
of Romanian politics by the alliance, moreover unnatural, between social
democrats and liberals, even if long-standing politicians such as Mircea
Geoana, former vice president of NATO, aspired to succeed to the
presidency of the country. Geoana, on September 3, 2024, resigned from
his position with the intention of running for the presidential
elections, with the support of the România Ranaste Foundation, led by
Dumitru Bortun, university professor, former presidential advisor and
former candidate for mayor of Bucharest of the PSRo.
The crowded field of candidates also included Diana Iovanovici-Sosoaca,
of the SOS Romania party, MEP and anti-vax, openly pro-Russian, but the
Constitutional Court deemed her anti-European positions incompatible
with the Romanian Constitution itself, accusing her of taking a
prejudicial stance against joining the European Union. Although some
politicians, especially those on the right who were competing with her,
such as Elena Lasconi, were quick to call this decision good news, the
reasons with which the Court proceeded with this exclusion appear weak
and above all a precursor to what then happened. However, Lasconi's
statements, in which she declared "at first glance, this ban on
Sosoaca's candidacy seems like a dream come true for Marcel Ciolacu",
were echoed by those of other politicians, such as the leader of the
National Liberal Party Nicolae Ciuca. The Liberals are part of the
governing coalition with PSD, yet they criticized the move, saying
"Romanians understand when someone wants absolute power. The
presidential showdown will be decided by the people, not by backroom
maneuvers or manipulation of institutions." However, Prime Minister
Ciolacu called on the CCR to quickly publish its reasons, which, he
stressed, must be based on "solid legal and constitutional grounds." He
added that the Constitutional Court's main role is to protect the rights
of candidates, "not to act as an obstacle to their participation in
elections." How it was possible that Georgescu - already a member,
until 2022, of the conservative party "Alliance for the Unity of
Romanians", a supporter of anti-scientific positions during Covid - has
gathered so many consensuses is soon said: he is a fierce and
irreducible opponent of Romanian support for Ukraine, the war and the
financing of the war effort. Therefore unpopular with the country's
pro-European establishment, Georgescu refused the offer of protection
from the State Police, guaranteed to candidates in the presidential
elections, and equipped himself with an order service made up of former
and current members of the French Foreign Legion, a sort of Wagner-type
militia, which carries out intervention activities especially in Africa.
His critics had an easy time presenting the presence of the current
Legionaries, insinuating his closeness to the Iron Legion, a far-right
political movement that characterized Romanian political life in the
1930s and collaborated with Nazism. However, it is a fact that
Georgescu, during his electoral campaign, traveled far and wide across
the country, even going to the most isolated locations, conducting a
long-lasting propaganda that made him known in the country and
appreciated for the defense of traditional Romanian values.
What seems relevant today is that Georgescu opposes the presence of the
NATO missile base of Daveselu, where ramps have been set up for the
launch of ballistic missiles aimed at Russia, as well as the presence of
the air base of Campia Turzli, managed by the Americans and surrounded
by the satellite bases of Craivo, Cernavodà, Oradea. He also explicitly
declared himself against the construction of the large base planned in
Constanta, on the Black Sea, which should be larger than the German one
of Ramstein, strongly desired by the outgoing president Iohannis.
In truth, Georgescu's position has deep motivations that do not reside
only in the refusal of any economic sacrifice for the Romanian people
aimed at supporting the Ukrainian war effort, but is rooted in his deep
sharing of the reasons and ideology of Russkiy Mir, which he deeply
shares, having been born and raised in a family of Orthodox priests. In
a word, his sharing of the social doctrine of the Russian Orthodox
Church is the element that motivates his political positions. On the
other hand, this orientation is common to other right-wing parties, as
had already been demonstrated by the results of the European elections
that had seen a notable growth in consensus for these parties. In
particular, Georgescu, active for years in the sector of environmental
protection and territorial planning, involved in international
organizations and in foundations and associations that deal with the
environment, pays particular attention to the problems of Romanian
minorities outside the country and in particular to the Romanian
populations of the Chernivtsi oblast, particularly discriminated against
by Ukraine that has incorporated these territories. This is where most
of his critical positions towards the current Ukrainian government come
from.
The political elections and the consolidation of the pro-Western parties
As expected, the elections for the Parliament were held on December 1st
and in this case the result was decidedly different: the pro-European
Social Democrats won the elections, even if the far-right parties
recorded a strong electoral growth. The PSD, which until now had been in
government with the liberals, collected 24.4% of the votes, ranking
first among the various parties, and yet the right-wing parties together
collected 31% of the votes, effectively tripling the consensus compared
to the previous round of elections, demonstrating the overall shift to
the right of the electorate. In the new Parliament it will not be easy
to proceed with the formation of the new government which in any case
will be the one called to manage the repetition of the elections for the
new President of the Republic, while the one currently in office will de
facto manage the transition phase, having the possibility of influencing
the future political balance of the country. However, the conditions
seem to exist for a government to be formed around the majority party
that excludes the right.
The intervention of the Constitutional Court
It goes without saying that the electoral results of the presidential
elections have raised quite a few concerns within Atlantic circles,
since the President of the Republic plays a particular role in the
Romanian legal system in guiding the country's policies. Therefore, the
Constitutional Court decided to resort to Article 52 of Law 32 of 2004,
which gives it the power to annul an electoral round "if the voting and
the determination of the results have taken place with fraud such as to
modify the assignment of the mandate or (...) the order of the
candidates who can participate in the second electoral round". It will
be said that this procedure should have been activated within three days
following the electoral outcome of the first round, that is, by Friday
29 November. However, using the planned holding of the parliamentary
elections as a pretext, the decision was postponed also with the
intention of evaluating the decisions to be taken in relation to the
results of the vote. Having verified that through an alliance, albeit
forced, of pro-Western parties it was possible to reach a majority in
the country, the Constitutional Court composed of 9 members, three
appointed by the President, three appointed by the Senate and three
appointed by the House, decided to take matters into its own hands and
intervene with a decision that has raised many doubts and that has
induced the elected officials to appeal to the new US president, even if
he has not taken office, to denounce the violation of democratic rules
and present what was happening as the last gasp not only of the European
Union, but also of the outgoing US administration. Officially, the final
decision to cancel the first round of the presidential elections was
motivated by the declassification of documents from the Bucharest secret
services regarding alleged interference by Russia in the electoral
process. The social activities of the winner of the first round were
denounced as fraudulent by the security services; According to the
Court, Georgescu allegedly used bots and specially created accounts to
spread his political messages, tampering with the TikTok algorithm, and
this while cyber attacks have been carried out since November 19 against
the digital infrastructure of the Permanent Electoral Authority (AEP),
the institution that certifies the results of individual elections,
compromising a cartographic server. The Romanian political world has
distanced itself from the Court's decision. While Georgescu has called
it "ridiculous and anti-democratic", his political opponents fear that
the cancellation of the presidential election will strengthen the
anti-system independent candidate. Therefore, they have gone so far as
to call the Court's choice "more catastrophic than Georgescu's victory".
While the difficulties of rescheduling the presidential elections are
more than evident, the issue of admitting candidates to the vote is
problematic, because nothing ensures that what happened, assuming that
the attempted fraud is proven, cannot happen again. At the moment the
country is experiencing a climate of witch hunt with attempts to make
various influencers confess obscure reasons that would have pushed them
to support the candidate Georgescu.
The lesson of the Romanian case
However it goes and whatever the conclusion of this intricate affair,
the political crisis highlighted by what has happened is completely
evident. As everywhere in Europe, the opposition to the war in Ukraine
has acted as a driving force for the tumultuous and almost unstoppable
growth of the right that has taken on the burden of the population's
discomfort with respect to a conflict that it does not feel as shared
and in the face of the refusal of the economic sacrifices to be borne to
finance the war and support the nationalism of a people that claims to
drain resources from other populations to support its own interests and
those of the oligarchs who represent it. In other words, the Ukrainian
war is not shared in its aims and reasons, and this is even more true in
Romania, where the Romanian population knows well the conditions in
which the Romanians of the border regions of Ukraine live, subjected to
continuous violations of their religious freedom in the name of the
interests of the autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church, judged by the
ecumene of Orthodox Churches as schismatic and which seizes their
assets. It should also be added that the competition of Ukrainian wheat,
transported through Romanian territory, to the detriment of Romanian
farmers, certainly did not please the population, who saw in Ukrainian
competition a significant economic damage to their well-being. Added to
this is the deep intolerance for the Romanian oligarchs who, having
crossed the borders, flaunt their wealth and are hosted in luxurious
residences where they use the profits deriving from the war economy and
the great corruption present in the country both as a result of the
exemption from paid military service and thanks to the bribes received
on war supplies and the non-repayable funding from the European Union to
support the social spending of a state whose finances are now
non-existent. The Romanian events are also a significant signal for the
parties of the left who see the consensus for their positions eroded by
an uncritical Atlanticism and give a passive quiescence towards the war.
The unnatural sharing for the left parties of the war as a tool for
resolving disputes turns out to be contrary to the very DNA that
identifies the political formation as solidarity-based and left-wing,
above all concerned with the material well-being of the people it
represents and intends to place at the center of its political action.
The primary support for welfare and personal services, as well as for
the economic and social well-being of the populations whose interests it
claims to represent, should always be the guiding star of every
decision. Adherence to questionable ideological choices, the name of a
principled position of abstract defense of democracy, are not credible
and in any case counterproductive with respect to the founding purposes
of the political formation and political ideology that they represent,
especially when the illiberal and often repressive nature of the
government of the country that asks for solidarity and support,
denouncing that it is being attacked, is known to all.
According to the latest news coming from the country, it seems that we
will have to wait three months before new presidential elections are
called and in the hope that political attention in the country of songs
will create the conditions for the parties in government to prevail,
thanks to the agreement reached on a unitary candidacy to counter the
right. In this situation, however, it is not clear how the Presidency of
the Republic will be managed and by whom, given that the mandate of the
President in office expires at the end of December and an extension in
office would be at least singular, especially since among the tasks of
the new president is the appointment of a constitutional judge,
considering that the Court will be renewed for one of its members, due
to the normal rotation. In this situation, there is uncertainty as to
what the consequences of a different composition of the Constitutional
Court could be, certifying the deep institutional crisis involving the
country and introducing an element of crisis and great weakness in the
southern deployment of NATO and Europe at a time when Bucharest
completes its path to accession to the European Union with the extension
of the Schengen Treaty to the country, an objective long pursued by
Romania and obtained thanks to the support of Orban's Hungary. What is
happening in Romania shows that the countries that have placed
themselves under the NATO umbrella live an independence with limited
sovereignty even now that the Soviet Union has collapsed. The strategy
of Anglo-Saxon imperialism of world domination pursues the objective of
fragmenting empires and therefore also the Russian imperial project must
be fought until the fragmentation of the current Russian territory into
as many ethnic states as there are ethnic groups in these immense
territories, so that the people can be better controlled and enslaved.
If we Italians needed confirmation of the strategy of tension and coup
attempts that developed in the country under Gadio and under the aegis
of NATO, we have proof of it today.
G. L.
https://www.ucadi.org/2025/01/02/colpo-di-stato-alla-rumena/
_________________________________________
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