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Politics is always so easy to interpret after the event. In the aftermath of Romania’s 1989 anti-communist revolution, amid a flowering of newspapers, an ultranationalist screed appeared on the streets. Called Romania Mare (Greater Romania) it soon inspired a political party with the same provocative name and revanchist views.
Both paper and party were a throwback to the 1930s. Year after year both lurked on the fringes. All the while Romania moved — albeit fitfully — into the mainstream. In the early 2000s it joined the European Union and Nato, a triumph after its rough ride under communism.
And yet now, appallingly, the spirit of Romania Mare, polished with a slick Trumpian veneer, is the country’s dominant force. George Simion, a politician infused with its hard-right ethos, is the frontrunner in Sunday’s second-round presidential election. Whatever the result, the many EU countries struggling to confront populism must learn from Romania: it is a casebook study in how not to respond.
If Simion, a one-time football hooligan, triumphs it will mark Romania’s biggest upheaval since 1989. Investors are aghast — as are Nato and EU officials who fear Romania may be about to join Hungary as a rogue member. None should be surprised.
There have of course been willing and familiar midwives for this populist surge, which led to Simion winning 41 per cent of the vote in the first round. It seems clear that Moscow masterminded a cyber campaign to amplify the right’s message. Stirring up electoral trouble via bots is a well-worn path for the Kremlin — and wonderfully cheap.
Then there are the old communist networks said to have funded Simion’s Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) and fellow travellers. Bucharest’s ex-securocrats prospered after 1989 in an echo of the KGB’s larceny. Their heirs and confreres will sense rich pickings in a Simion-run state.
But, unhealthy as these influences are, the real culprits for the rise of the right are the establishment parties, which have cosily and corruptly alternated in power for 35 years. A new generation of journalists and prosecutors have highlighted scandal after scandal, especially under the Social Democrats. Watch Collective, an Oscar-nominated exposé of corruption in the health service, and weep.
As it happens, the outgoing coalition government is possibly Romania’s cleanest ever but it came too late to allay popular malaise with the status quo. (It was also hopeless at communicating its message.)
Romania’s establishment failed to share the fruits of globalisation while remaining far too complacent about the threat from the right. Simion built his brand as an anti-vaxxer during the pandemic, exploiting a communist-era suspicion of the nanny state. Since his AUR party entered frontline politics in 2020, its nationalism has too often been downplayed if not indulged by the mainstream.
What folly that has proved. When the centrist establishment finally grasped the scale of the threat, it reacted crudely, annulling the first round of last year’s election when another ultranationalist Călin Georgescu won, citing Russian interference. He was later barred from taking part in the rerun by the Constitutional Court, based on sketchy evidence.
US vice-president JD Vance appalled Europe’s centrists in February when he lambasted the EU for curtailing freedom of speech without mentioning Russia’s tyranny. But he was on to something when he suggested the response to Georgescu was excessive. And yes — surprise, surprise — the banning seems to have fired up the right.
For Maga activists in the US and beyond, a Simion victory would be another welcome nail in the EU coffin, even though in a bid to woo moderates he says he will stay in Nato and the EU. The Kremlin must be cock-a-hoop to find itself hailed as Romania’s arch-puppeteer given that the country historically hated Russia. As for the surviving hacks from Romania Mare, against the odds their hour has come.
Romania’s liberals and ethnic minorities have pinned their faint hopes on Nicuşor Dan, the mayor of Bucharest, a mathematician with an unflashy record. Even if he wins, the country faces turmoil, if not dysfunction.
Sir George Iacobescu, who left Romania under communism and ended up running one of Europe’s biggest property businesses, Canary Wharf Group, despairs of AUR’s supporters, in particular the many in the vast diaspora in the EU who voted for it last time. “They are destroying the country to get rid of its putrid management,” he says. “It’s like burning down an entire forest rather than just its dead trees.” A cautionary tale indeed.
alec.russell@ft.com
