Partial counts showed that the far-right candidate, who is highly critical of NATO, and the centre-left Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu are in a dead heat at the end of the first round of the presidential elections on Sunday (24 November), a shock result that endangers Romania’s strongly pro-Ukraine position.
After almost 93% of the votes were counted, Călin Georgescu, 62, was at 22%, while Ciolacu had 21%. This suggests they are likely to qualify to face each other in the second round, scheduled for December 8.
Among hundreds of thousands of voters living outside Romania, a center-right candidate, Elena Lasconi, came in second place, behind Georgescu. Around 50% of the ballots cast in Romania have been counted. But that margin may not be enough to win her a place in the final race after all the votes are counted, observers said.
Georgescu is a former leading member of the right-wing Alliance for the Union of Romanians party.
In 2021, he called NATO’s ballistic missile defense shield in the Romanian town of Deveselu a “disgrace of diplomacy” and said the North Atlantic Alliance would not protect any of its members in the event of an attack by Russia.
Georgescu is a black belt in Judo and became vice-champion of Romania and the Balkans in 1979.
🇷🇴 Călin Georgescu is a black belt in Judo and became vice-champion of Romania and the Balkans in 1979
He is also a black belt in Karate Shotokan and used to run marathons
He currently leads the race for the presidency of Romania as a nationalist candidate pic.twitter.com/52eiS6Bf3n
— Daily Romania (@daily_romania) November 24, 2024
The result is surprising because the polls estimated Georgescu’s result in single digits and gave a greater chance to another extremist candidate, George Simion.
The Romanian president has a semi-executive role that allows him to control defense spending. This is likely to be a difficult question, given that Bucharest is under pressure to maintain NATO spending targets during Donald Trump’s second term as US president, while trying to reduce the heavy fiscal deficit.
Some opinion polls had Georgescu around 5% of the vote ahead of the election, after he had barely registered in previous polls.
Political commentator Radu Magdin said the difference between his single-digit popularity and Sunday’s result was unprecedented since Romania threw off communism in 1989.
“In our 34 years of democracy we have never seen a surge like this in the polls,” Magdin said.
The election campaign focused mainly on the soaring cost of living, with Romania having the highest percentage of people at risk of poverty in the EU.
Ciolacu courted voters by promising generous spending and no tax increases, despite Romania having the largest budget deficit in the European Union, at 8% of the economic outlook, and by offering a sense of security in political stability at a time of war near us.
A former leading member of the right-wing Alliance for the Union of Romanians party, Georgescu called NATO’s ballistic missile shield in the Romanian town of Deveselu a “shame of diplomacy.”
He said the North Atlantic Alliance would not protect any of its members if Russia were to attack them.
“We are strong and courageous, many of us have voted and even more will do so in the second round,” Georgescu said Sunday evening standing alone outside a residential building near the capital Bucharest.
Lasconi, a former journalist, joined the Union Save Romania (USR) in 2018 and became party leader this year. He believes in increasing defense spending and aid for Ukraine, and polls indicate he would beat Ciolacu in a runoff.
On the brink of war
Romania shares a 650km border with Ukraine and, since Russia attacked Kiev in 2022, has allowed the export of millions of tonnes of grain through the Black Sea port of Constanta and provided military aid, including including a complete battery of Patriot missiles for air defense.
Villages on the border with Ukraine saw a barrage of drones violating national airspace, although no casualties were reported.
One political commentator said that Russian interference to give Georgescu an advantage in the elections could not be ruled out.
“Based on Georgescu’s position towards Ukraine and the discrepancy between opinion polls and the actual result, we cannot rule out this hypothesis,” said Sergiu Miscoiu, a political science professor at Babes-Bolyai University.
Outgoing president Klaus Iohannis, 65, has consolidated Romania’s strong pro-Western position but has been accused of not doing enough to fight corruption.
“It will be a close runoff, with the Social Democrat leader most vulnerable to negative campaigning due to the fact that he is a sitting prime minister,” Magdin said.
(Edited by Georgi Gotev)
Laws Who the original article.
