Romania's Presidential Election Drama Has a New Twist

Yahoo

12-03-2025

In a scenario that evokes memories of the period immediately following the end of the Cold War, a Central European nation is locked in a battle to fend off Russian influence while safeguarding its democracy. But this time around, there is a critical twist: As Romania strives to maintain the integrity of its representative government, one of the states seemingly working against it is the United States.
This weekend, Romania's election authority, the Central Electoral Bureau, disqualified far-right populist candidate Calin Georgescu from participating in May's rerun of the presidential election, ruling that he had 'violated the fundamental obligation to defend democracy.' Georgescu won the first round of the election in November, but Romania's Constitutional Court later annulled the results after intelligence reports alleged that he had benefited from an aggressive Russian-sponsored propaganda campaign on the social media platform TikTok.
Almost immediately after Sunday's announcement, Georgescu appealed the election authority's decision, calling it a 'direct blow to the heart of democracy around the world.' His supporters took to the streets of Bucharest in protest, attempting to storm the election authority's headquarters. The demonstration quickly descended into violence, leaving four police officers hospitalized.
In just a few months, Georgescu has gone from being a political outsider unknown outside of Romania to being a key figurehead of the global far-right populist movement. His rise has been fueled by savvy online engagement: He has amassed over 700,000 followers on TikTok and 400,000 on Facebook since starting his campaign, allowing him to harness nationalist sentiment, exploit the legacy of Romania's fascist and antisemitic past, and use the ongoing war in Ukraine to push a protectionist agenda.
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Georgescu has accused the European Union and NATO of conspiring to block his path to office and has openly praised Romania's historical fascist leaders. His rhetoric has resonated with Romanians who are disillusioned with the country's political elite, while his social media presence has strengthened his appeal among younger voters.
In the aftermath of his disqualification, some of Europe's leading far-right political figures quickly rallied behind Georgescu. Matteo Salvini, Italy's deputy prime minister and leader of the far-right Lega party, condemned the election authority's decision as a 'soviet-style EU coup.' But Georgescu's most vocal support has come from the United States.
Among his key defenders is Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, and a senior adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump. Taking to X, Musk questioned how a judge could 'end democracy in Romania' following the election authority's decision. This was not the first time Musk intervened on Georgescu's behalf. In late February, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation into Georgescu, charging him with six offences, including campaign finance violations, support for fascist organizations—illegal in Romania—and fraudulent use of digital technologies. In response, Musk falsely claimed that 'the person who won the most votes in the Romanian presidential election' had been arrested, misleading his millions of followers.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance also took a hardline stance, telling the Republican party faithful at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February that Romania no longer shared the United States' values. 'You don't have shared values if you cancel elections because you don't like the result,' he declared, accusing the Romanian government of silencing its people. Vance staked out a similar position in early February at the Munich Security Conference, where he shocked those in attendance by calling mainstream political parties' efforts to keep the far right out of power a bigger threat to Europe than Russia.
Unsurprisingly, Moscow has also come to Georgescu's defense. Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service recently claimed that 'the European bureaucracy has declared war on 'non-systemic leaders' who openly support U.S. President Donald Trump and refuse to follow instructions from the EU's ruling liberal elites.'
Georgescu, for his part, has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as 'a man who loves his country.' Georgescu's anti-EU and anti-NATO positioning not only mirrors Putin and Trump's geopolitical agenda but has major implications for Ukraine, which has depended on Romania as both an ally and a critical transit hub for military aid from its U.S. and European supporters. Should Romania fall under the influence of Georgescu, it would likely sever these strategic ties, shifting the balance of power in the region and leaving Ukraine further isolated at a time when the U.S. is using military aid as leverage to force Kyiv to the negotiating table.
The Georgescu crisis has placed Romania at the center of all these geopolitical tensions. A government trying to defend its hard-won democracy is being pulled in multiple directions by competing powers: Russia, which has always considered Romania part of its sphere of influence; the EU, which is struggling to defend itself from malign forces; and a U.S. administration that appears hostile to Brussels and willing to appease Moscow. Romania has also become a test case for whether democratic institutions can withstand rising populism in an era when online misinformation spreads so rapidly.
More worryingly, despite the Romanian government's firm pro-Western stance, support for Georgescu has continued to grow. Having won roughly 23 percent of the first-round vote in a six-candidate field, he now commands around 40 percent of voter support, according to the latest polls, a figure that has remained stable despite his disqualification. Not even a ruling on March 6 by the European Court of Human Rights dismissing Georgescu's appeal of his disqualification, which he claimed was 'unlawful and disproportionate,' could quell the unrest among his supporters.
As Romania approaches its presidential election rerun in May, it faces an uphill battle to preserve public trust in its democratic process. However, this struggle is no longer just about one election—it has become a question of whether a European democracy can survive when one of its former allies is actively working against it.
For decades, the U.S. positioned itself as a global defender of democracy. Yet, under Trump's leadership, Washington is no longer a champion of democratic governance but rather an active enabler of ultranationalist movements. The fact that both the U.S. and Russia are now aligned in their support for a Romanian far-right populist marks a fundamental shift in global politics. Meanwhile, Putin more than likely sees the destabilization of Romania's democracy as a strategic victory, further undermining European security and possibly diminishing Ukraine's prospects for sustained Western support.
When it finally takes place this May, Romania's presidential election will now avoid the worst-case scenarios that Georgescu threatened to manifest. But the impact of the events since November could still help shape the future of European security and trans-Atlantic relations, while illustrating the threats facing democracy itself in an age of resurgent nationalism and geopolitical upheaval.
Amanda Coakley is a strategic adviser and Europe's Futures Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. In 2024 she was named an Aspen U.K. Rising Leaders Fellow. Her monthly WPR column appears on Wednesdays.
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