Romania, Populism, & Geopolitics

Sunday’s presidential runoff election in Romania resulted in the victory of Bucharest mayor Nicusor Dan, a liberal-globalist, over the populist candidate George Simion. It was actually the country’s third such election in half a year since the first one in December, which saw populist candidate Calin Georgescu emerge as the black horse frontrunner, was annulled on scandalous pretexts. The authorities claimed that his campaign was promoted on social media by a foreign entity that many assumed to be Russia.

No evidence surfaced in support of that allegation, however, with other evidence instead coming to light suggesting that a pro-EU liberal party inadvertently backed him on social media during a botched influence campaign. Nevertheless, Georgescu was banned from running again, hence why his ally Simion took his place in the first-round re-run that was held in early May, which he won. Prior to that, Vance slammed Romania in February for annulling December’s election, mocking it as a weak democracy.

He did so during his speech at the Munich Security Conference, which attracted worldwide attention since he criticized other European elite to their face, thus highlighting the ideological differences between Trump’s America and the liberal-globalist EU. One of the trends most closely associated with the global systemic transition to multipolarity has been the rise of populist sentiment in the West, with Trump and his “Make America Great Again”/“America First” movement representing its American form.

Although they’re the most globally impactful populist movement, they weren’t the first to rise to power in the West. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s return to office in 2010 is now seen in hindsight as the beginning of this trend. Since then, other populist movements have risen across Europe, but they haven’t (yet?) obtained control over their governments. The only exception is Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s return to office in late 2023.

Hungary and Slovakia have since formed a populist core of sorts in Central Europe. Serbia, whose government under President Aleksandar Vucic espouses populist rhetoric from time to time but has been criticized by opponents as insincere and opportunistic, has expanded ties with both. In fact, Chairman of the Committee on the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region Dragan Stanojevic told Izvestia in late March that Serbia wants to ally with them, which could lead to a new pole of influence emerging.

A traditional military alliance is unlikely since Hungary and Slovakia are NATO members so it’s difficult to imagine them hypothetically fighting side-by-side with Serbia against fellow NATO allies Croatia and/or Albania in the scenario that one or both attack Serbia like some fear might happen. In spite of that, they could still work closer together on the economic and socio-cultural fronts, which could add some positive dynamism to regional developments in which Romania could have participated had Simion won.

He, like Georgescu, campaigned on a patriotic and conservative platform that included pledges to cut off all aid to Ukraine and even reincorporate Moldova, which Romanian nationalists like them lay claim to. These positions naturally resulted in Europe’s ruling liberal-globalist elite seeing them as their enemies. A plan was then set into motion to prevent the movement that they represent from coming to power due to concerns that this would greatly undermine Europe’s anti-Russian proxy war in Ukraine.

To that end, the unsubstantiated allegations of foreign support for Georgescu on social media were circulated as the pretext for annulling the first round’s results and then barring him from running again, after which the re-run was rescheduled for early May. This gave the European elite enough time to fearmonger about the consequences of populists winning the presidency, be it Georgescu prior to his disqualification or his successor Simion, and to devise ways to defraud the vote just in case.

About that, Simion accused Moldova’s anti-Russian government of manipulating the diaspora there against him, which coincided with a separate claim that some polling stations in the diaspora elsewhere were left without ballots. This second accusation resembled the one that the Moldovan opposition made during last autumn’s presidential election, which the Russian Foreign Ministry endorsed, after only two polling stations were opened in Moscow for the estimated half-million-large diaspora there.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov also revealed that he rejected a personal request from French foreign intelligence chief Nicolas Lerner to “ban conservative voices in Romania ahead of elections.” France’s interest in the outcome might surprise casual observers who aren’t aware that it has a base in Romania, signed a security pact with neighboring Moldova last year, and recently completed 3-D mapping of the “Focsani Gate”, which is a strategically located region near the Romanian-Moldovan-Ukrainian tri-border

Macron threatened that France might conventionally intervene in Ukraine, which could realistically occur from Romania if a decision is made, thus explaining the importance of preventing populists from coming to power who’d rescind permission to use Romanian territory as a launchpad. To be sure, France might not go through with it, especially after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth confirmed in February that the US wouldn’t offer Article 5 assistance to NATO allies’ troops in Ukraine.

At the same time, however, it can’t be ruled out either since France and its fellow liberal-globalists elsewhere in Europe might dangerously gamble that the US could be pressured into supporting them. The scenario of a French-led European military intervention in Ukraine launched from Romania might therefore still be in the cards. So too might one from Poland, but further clarity about the likelihood of that happening will follow the second round of the presidential elections that’ll be held on 1 June.

Liberal-globalist Prime Minister Donald Tusk promised that Poland won’t send troops to Ukraine, but US Special Envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg claimed earlier this month that it still might, though he was promptly rebuked by leading officials like the Defense and Foreign Ministers. For Poland to dispatch troops abroad, there must be an agreement between the Prime Minister and the President, but the outgoing president is from the (very imperfect) conservative opposition that’s been critical of Ukraine.

Sunday’s first round saw liberal-globalist Mayor of Warsaw Rafal Trzaskowski narrowly win, but conservative-backed historian Karol Nawrocki might ultimately come out on top in the second round if the populists who supported Slawomir Mentzen and Grzegorz Braun rally behind him. If Nawrocki pulls that off, then he can veto any request by Tusk to dispatch troops to Ukraine, while Trzaskowski would predictably go along with it if Tusk flip-flops in the event that his ally captures the presidency.

As can be seen, the geopolitical significance of the Romanian and Polish presidential elections is whether or not these two might be used as launchpads for a European military intervention in Ukraine, which is possible in the Romanian case after Dan’s fraudulent victory but remains unclear in the Polish one. At the very least, keeping the Romanian option open ensures that this scenario remains viable, so the liberal-globalists still achieved what they wanted vis-à-vis Ukraine even if they don’t get their way in Poland.