Far-Right Romanian Candidate Is Frontrunner Even After Turmoil

(Bloomberg) -- A Romanian far-right candidate who shocked the political establishment last year by winning the first round of the presidential election remains the frontrunner as authorities aim to repeat the contest in May.

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Calin Georgescu, a fringe independent who has denounced NATO and praised Vladimir Putin, had 38% support among a field of six candidates, according to a survey carried out by pollster Avangarde. Still, a runoff with Crin Antonescu, a former National Liberal Party leader backed by Romania’s ruling factions, would be a tight race, with Georgescu only slightly ahead, the poll showed.

The survey makes clear Georgescu’s resilience among Romanian voters, many frustrated with the political establishment, even after his victory prompted accusations from security officials about Russian meddling. It also showed broad disaffection over the ruling by the nation’s top court to nullify the election, which was rescheduled for later this year. Nearly half of respondents called it the wrong decision.

At stake is the future of a European Union and NATO member state that shares a 600-kilometer (375-mile) border with Ukraine and hosts thousands of troops from the military alliance. A nation that’s been a reliable transatlantic partner since the fall of communism, Romania’s turmoil may mark a turning point as far-right forces make steady gains.

The crisis has led to a selloff in Romanian bonds, with the yield on the local 10-year note trading above 8%, close to a two-year high hit last week.

Georgescu, a 62-year-old agricultural engineer, was catapulted from obscurity to win the Nov. 24 first-round vote with help from a social media campaign, including high-quality TikTok videos, for which he declared he’d received no funding.

A top-level security panel in Bucharest said the effort was abetted by outside interference, a determination cited by the Constitutional Court in its Dec. 6 decision to void the election. The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday rejected Georgescu’s challenge to the cancellation.

‘Globalist System’

Since then, the candidate has taken to far-right media outlets to denounce the decision as a “coup d’etat.” In a Jan. 17 podcast interview with right-wing US provocateur Alex Jones, Georgescu said the court ruling was “ordered from abroad and implemented by the globalist system.”

The presidential candidate went on to declare the EU and North Atlantic Treaty Organization to be instruments of a globalist conspiracy bent on prolonging the war in Ukraine for profit and to conceal corrupt networks. His election victory is part of a “wave” of anti-establishment figures across Europe, he said, with President Donald Trump playing a dominant role.

“We are looking to President Trump to act in this situation,” Georgescu said, “and to give the signal everywhere, that the big shift and change has already started.”

The candidate’s political fortunes have held steady despite a coordinated effort by Romania’s ruling parties to denounce him as a conspiracy theorist and extremist — and lay bare the fragility of the EU member’s democratic institutions.

His standing also complicates a potential court decision to ban him from running again because of the suspicions over foreign intervention.

The Avangarde poll had Antonescu in second place with 25%, with a raft of other candidates behind. Should Georgescu advance to a second round against Antonescu, the poll showed the far-right candidate ahead with 39% to 38%. Other contenders fared worse, according to Jan. 10-16 poll, which surveyed more than 1,300 people and had a margin of error of 2.6 percentage points.

Looming over the turmoil is voter frustration with inflation, rising inequality and a political class long accused of corruption — factors that have helped fuel a string of street protests in Romania in recent weeks. The nationalist AUR party came in second in December’s parliamentary election behind the ruling Social Democrats, with about a third of the seats in Romania’s lower house held by the far right.

Still, other polling shows a more mixed picture. Despite Georgescu’s denunciation of Romania’s allegiances, 87% of voters said they support the EU and NATO, according to an Inscop study commissioned by Funky Citizens, a non-governmental organization.

“This shows that what is happening lately on the political scene is not related to the overall direction, but rather with an internal agenda and dissatisfaction with the political class,” Remus Stefureac, the head of Inscop, said during a press conference in Bucharest on Tuesday. Voters were put off by “the feeling of dealmaking and injustice,” he said.

--With assistance from Andras Gergely.

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