NEED TO KNOW
Choosing a Direction
ROMANIA
Romanian voters are set to elect a new parliament and president over the next few weeks in races that could make a big impact on the Western alliance against Russian influence in Europe.
Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, a leftist, is expected to win more than 25 percent of the vote in the first round of presidential elections on Nov. 24. His rival, populist right-wing leader George Simion of the Alliance for Uniting Romanians is forecast to garner about 20 percent of voters. They will likely face off in a runoff on Dec. 8, reported Reuters.
Simion, a former football hooligan, was heartened by former US President Donald Trump’s success in the recent American elections, saying Trump’s “victory for patriots over globalists” demonstrated the appeal of “America First” approaches and the failure of “neo-Marxist” ideologies, reported Romanian-Insider. “I expect all this neo-Marxist, woke, transhumanist ideology to stop there and be left alone,” Simion wrote on Facebook.
Meanwhile, he likes to portray himself as a patriot in the vein of the 15th-century prince, Vlad the Impaler (Dracula), and wants to “make Romania great again,” the Financial Times wrote.
Ciolacu, meanwhile, was meeting British Premier Sir Kier Starmer in London to burnish his image as a respected member of the European establishment with the signing of a new defense agreement between the two countries.
A former Soviet vassal that was nevertheless relatively independent of Moscow compared with other East European countries, Romania today is an important member of the European Union and NATO that borders Ukraine.
Like neighboring Moldova, where the BBC detailed how voters recently elected a pro-European Union candidate in a competitive election against a pro-Russian rival, Ciolacu and Simion have become locked in a debate about their country’s future relations with Russia. Ciolacu represents the pro-Western camp while Simion allegedly favors protecting Russia’s interests.
As Euractiv explained, Simion was banned from Moldova for five years due to his alleged ties to Russia and his proposal to unify Romania and Moldova, a former Soviet republic where most people speak Romanian. Russia now keeps troops in Moldova to protect ethnic-Russian breakaway regions there.
Accordingly, Russia has been seeking to meddle in the Romanian election through proxy organizations, influence peddling operations, bribery, and digital propaganda campaigns that deploy bots to spread misinformation and/or support for Simion, wrote Ukrainian Pravda. It used the same tactics in Moldova’s elections last month but failed to sway voters.
Simion might gain from a ruling by the country’s top court that pro-Russia leader Diana Șoșoacă’ of the S.O.S. România political party – an offshoot of Simion’s Alliance for Uniting Romanians – was ineligible to run for president due to inconsistencies in her campaign papers and doubts that she would uphold the constitution.
Regardless, Ciolacu appears ahead, according to the Robert Schuman Foundation.
As a result, Romania might follow Moldova – this time – but that’s not a certainty, wrote Politico.
“The electoral outcome may keep Romania on its mostly pro-European, centrist path,” the news outlet wrote. “Or (it may) tip it toward more nativist policies that would sound alarm bells in Brussels because of the country’s strategic proximity to Ukraine and its role as a key southeast European economy.”
To read the full edition and support independent journalism, join our community of informed readers and subscribe today!