Shock in Romania as far-right NATO critic Calin Georgescu takes lead in presidential elections | Romania

A little-known far-right populist took the lead in Romania’s presidential elections on Sunday, election data showed. He is likely to face left-wing Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu in a runoff in two weeks, an outcome that has upended the country’s political landscape.

Calin Georgescu, who was running independently, led the polls with about 22% of the vote after almost 93% of votes were counted, while Ciolacu of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) trailed with 21%. Elena Lasconi of the Save Romania Union party (USR) was around 18%, and George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), around 14%.

After the polling stations closed, 9.4 million people – about 52.4% of eligible voters – had cast their votes, according to the Central Elections Office. The second round of voting will take place on December 8.

The president serves a five-year term and has significant decision-making powers in areas such as national security, foreign policy and judicial appointments in the European Union and NATO member states.

Georgescu-Roegen, 62, ran independently and was not widely known. He outperformed most local surveys and sent shockwaves through Romania’s political establishment as he rose to pole position.

After casting his vote on Sunday, Georgescu-Roegen said in a post on Facebook that he had voted “For the unjust, for the humiliated, for those who feel like they don’t matter and actually matter the most… the vote is a prayer for the nation.”

Cristian Andrei, a political consultant based in Bucharest, told The Associated Press that Georgescu-Roegen’s unexpected election result appears to be a “major protest or revolt against the establishment.”

“The mainstream political parties have lost connection with mainstream Romanians,” he said. “You don’t have strong candidates or strong leaders… there are weak candidates, weak leaders, and the parties in general have virtually nothing to do with each other.

Georgescu-Roegen lacks an agenda, Andrei said, and has a vague and populist manifesto with positions that are “outside the normal discourse.” His positions include supporting Romanian farmers, reducing dependence on imports and increasing energy and food production.

Georgescu-Roegen has called NATO’s ballistic missile defense shield in the Romanian city of Deveselu a “disgrace of diplomacy”. He has said the North Atlantic alliance will not protect any of its members if they are attacked by Russia.

According to his website, Georgescu-Roegen has a doctorate in pedology, a branch of soil science, and held various positions at the Romanian Ministry of the Environment in the 1990s. Between 1999 and 2012 he was Romania’s representative on the national committee of the United Nations Environment Programme.

Videos posted to his popular TikTok account, where he has amassed 1.6 million likes, show him going to church, doing judo, running around an oval track and speaking on podcasts.

Romania shares a 650km border with Ukraine and since Russia attacked Kiev in 2022, it has allowed the export of millions of tonnes of grain through the Black Sea port of Constanta and provided military aid, including the donation of a Patriot air defense battery.

Villages on the border with Ukraine have faced a barrage of drones breaching national airspace, although no casualties have been reported.

A political commentator said Russian interference to give Georgescu-Roegen an edge in the elections cannot be ruled out.

“Based on Georgescu’s position on Ukraine and the discrepancy between opinion polls and the actual outcome, we cannot rule that out,” said Sergiu Miscoiu, professor of political science at Babes-Bolyai University.

Ecaterina Nawadia, a 20-year-old architecture student, said she voted for the first time in the national elections on Sunday and hoped that large numbers of young people would turn out.

“We haven’t had a really good president since the 1989 revolution,” she said. “I hope most people my age have started voting… because the leading candidate is not the best option.”

Romania will also hold parliamentary elections on December 1, which will determine the country’s next government and prime minister.

Andrei, the political adviser, said Romania’s large budget deficit, high inflation and an economic slowdown could push more mainstream candidates to switch to populist positions amid widespread discontent.

Ciolacu told the AP before the first-round vote that one of his biggest goals was to “convince Romanians that it is worth staying home or returning” to Romania, which has a huge diaspora spread across the country. EU countries.

With Associated Press and Reuters