[jbirer]

Romanian here. Discussions of cancelling the election happened way before the cyberattack. AFAIK for the first time in a very long time the largest two parties did not win and they started panicking and scrambling to re-do the vote count.

[simion314]

Romanian here too, anyone with a bit of a brain and not biassed would tell you that this unknown guy growing in 2 weeks was not normal.

Any person in any country with a bit of inteligence could also tell you that this guy did not used ZERO funds in his campaign as he declared , so if you are his fan go pray he will not go to jail for fraud or treason, but probably politicians already have their jail cells upgraded for their fat asses, he will write some book and get out a bit faster.

[NVHacker]

Growing relative to what ? The polls that the government media fed the people non stop, claiming that no-one else stands a chance ? Also, just because he didn't register inside your bubble, doesn't make him "unknown": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C4%83lin_Georgescu

[willvarfar]

Do you think the protest candidate will do better or worse in the rerun?

[cbg0]

It's unclear if he will be allowed to participate again, due to his sympathy for the Iron Guard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Guard) which is outlawed, and some pending criminal cases for money laundering, as he reported 0 expenses in the election campaign, which is impossible.

[autoexec]

Did tiktok convince 20% of the voters to vote for a racist, or did they trick 20% into unwittingly voting for a racist? Hopefully now that everyone is talking about him and his affection for religious fascism a lot of those voters will realize what they voted for and change their vote in the future.

[poloniculmov]

His campaign messages weren't outright extremist, just your casual populism, impossible promises and a dash of dogwhistles. Once he won the first round of elections, people really started to look into his past and it's pretty insane.

[RealityVoid]

I think he is legitimately insane. He fits schizotypal personality disorder to a T. Multiple psychologists told me he fits.

[H8crilA]

They voted for him because he speaks pretty well for a politician. Also some of his messages really land - consider that Ukraine is losing (very very slowly, and can still win), so it makes sense to talk to both sides since it's unclear who will be calling shots in the region. Moldova is definitely next, right after Ukraine, and it cannot defend itself even from one mechanized brigade.

[cbg0]

His messaging regarding Ukraine was not something that positively affected his campaign, on the contrary it ignited political opponents over his anti-NATO views.

His campaign landed better because of his palatable way of speaking and saying a lot without saying anything, as most people that voted for him were not really aware of his positions on any serious subject.

[RealityVoid]

Yes, I said multiple times he was Schrodinger's candidate, he could hold multiple mutually contradictory positions at the same time. Pretty ridiculous.

[quickthrowman]

Romania is a member of NATO, they don’t need to give two shits about Russia being a regional power because they will not be invaded by Russia as long as the US is part of NATO.

[AustinDev]

>Ukraine is losing (very very slowly, and can still win),

This is not remotely true, Ukraine can't retake what it's lost they have no men left. If it were true Zelensky wouldn't be contemplating ceding territory to Russia. It sucks but Ukraine lost in 2014 when the world let Crimea get annexed with no response.

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/zelensky-says-for-first-...

[aguaviva]

Ukraine can't retake what it's lost they have no men left.

You're extremifying.

You could have said "they don't have enough people". But instead you had to dial it up to "they have no men left".

No matter what is actually happening on the ground -- you definitely won't be able to make heads or tails of it, if you keep confounding yourself with rhetoric like this.

[the_mitsuhiko]

Just depends on how you define “winning”. Right now both Russia and Ukraine are losing a lot compared to before 2022.

[wyager]

Our Democracy(tm) is when elected candidates are judicially removed due to accusations of having unfavorable "sympathies"

[cbg0]

This has not happened yet, it's merely a speculation at this time, but the accusations have a solid foundation in videos of him talking about the subject and even plagiarizing speeches by famous Iron Guard members.

Romania does not have free speech like the US, we have protected speech and there are some sympathies which are simply illegal, whether you agree with it or not.

[serial_dev]

I know nothing about this situation, but I bet it's like when they say Trump = Hitler, because he had a rally at MSG.

[cbg0]

Nobody's calling him Hitler, there's a lot of very weird things the guy says though, as he's pretty heavy into religious mysticism and a bit of a nutjob, some of his hits:

- Pepsi contains nanochips that enter your body

- water isn't actually H2O

- capitalism is communism, there is no difference

- everybody accepted that Covid exists, there's no such thing, there never was

[tsimionescu]

No, it's way beyond that.

He got booted out of one of the other far right wing parties when he publicly praised Romania's 1930s-1940s fascist/nazi dictators as "heroes, who maybe did some bad things, but a lot of good". He has refused to diaavow them every time he has been asked about them.

One of his major campaign leads wears Romanian nazi symbolism (think the Romanian equivalent of a swastika). The other one often posts about those same dictators, especially in commemoration of their deaths.

He has started one of his speeches with an exact quote from one of said dictators.

This is beyond all of the insane conspiracies and religious mystic declarations, from seeing aliens to "C-sections interrupt the divine cord", "water is not just H2O, it is information, that is why they bottle it to keep this information contained", and so many more.

[aguaviva]

when they say Trump = Hitler, because he had a rally at MSG.

No, not "because he had a rally at MSG".

But because of the things he said at that rally.

Do you understand the distinction?

It's also definitely not true that most of the people saying he's a fascist are saying he's "a Nazi"; that's an overdrawn distortion. And a lot of these people with concerns about his rhetoric don't even necessarily think he's a fascist per se; though they do find a matter of concern that he seems to at least be channeling fascist rhetoric.

Whether you agree with them or not is beside the point. What seems much more significant is that you seem to have a weirdly muddled (and hyperemotionalized) view of what people actually think about Trump, and why.

[hcurtiss]

Uhm, you have "sympathies which are simply illegal"? Wow. You trust the government to tell you where you can lay your personal sympathies? I sometimes run into casual statements like this that make me SO GRATEFUL I live in the United States.

[cbg0]

I don't trust the government, but I do trust history on this. If you're curious about the movement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Guard

I'm very grateful to live in Romania and have a lot of things about the US that I disagree with, but I understand it's a different country with a different history & culture.

[idunnoman1222]

He’s going to be arrested his TikTok’s were too good

[armchairhacker]

> AFAIK for the first time in a very long time the largest two parties did not win and they started panicking and scrambling to re-do the vote count.

This is what it sounds like. Everyone's talking about "democracy vs Russian interference" but I think it's realpolitik.

The top two candidates who were to compete in the final election were Georgescu (a lunatic) and Lasconi (SRU, a moderate outsider). Lasconi was second only by a small margin to Ciolacu (SPD, current president).

Immediately after the first election, the court (mostly consisting of SPD) ordered (EDIT: one) controversial recount they blocked almost everyone from seeing. Some suspect the plan was to declare a miscount and get Ciolacu into second place. Then the first election would not be rerun and the final election would be Georgescu vs Ciolacu.

Except if it came down to them there's a good chance Georgescu would've won, since people would know SPD corrupted the results. And Georgescu really is a lunatic, so perhaps SPD decided they'd rather have Lasconi then him.

Except now it seems SPD hasn't fully decided this. This election seemingly gives them one more (albeit small) chance, while still ensuring Georgescu won't win (unless he out-votes even someone like Lasconi, but I can only hope not. Georgescu makes Trump look like Abraham Lincoln).

[cbg0]

> Immediately after the first election, the court (mostly consisting of SPD) ordered a recount.

The recount was ordered after two complaints were lodged, one which was rejected and the one that was accepted was from another contender in the first round of elections. Only one recount was performed. Only 4 of the 9 members of the court were proposed by PSD (SPD), 4 were proposed by PNL and another by UDMR.

> Except now it seems SPD hasn't fully decided this. This election seemingly gives them one more chance

While they do have another chance, the fact that they were at the wheel while this happened, and the fact that their candidate was in 3rd place even after the recount will not help them in a new election.

[nottorp]

> Only 4 of the 9 members of the court were proposed by PSD (SPD), 4 were proposed by PNL and another by UDMR.

You forget to mention that PSD/SPD and PNL are running the government together now, and UDMR (minority hungarian party) will ally with anyone who gives them a few government positions. Usually with SPD.

[alephnerd]

What is his stance on Moldova? Doesn't pan-Romanian nationalism have a strong undercurrent in Romanian politics? And how does that play in with Romanian-Russian relations?

[cbg0]

Every politician in Romania has a "pro Moldova" attitude and even a pro-union attitude (there's no legal mechanism to make this happen, so it's very shallow).

In Moldova, where lots of people have Romanian citizenship as well, Lasconi received 56.5% of the vote, while Georgescu received 3.11% of the vote.

[alephnerd]

Makes sense. I'm very curious as to why Romania was caught so off guard in comparison to Moldova despite a very similar disinfo campaign barely a few weeks ago against Sandu (heck, I'd assume this disinfo campaign used the exact same personnel).

On which note, was there any reuse found in comparison to the campaign in Moldova?

I'm predicating this on Georgescu's anti-NATO stance (that said, I don't really follow EE politics that closely).

[cbg0]

We don't have all the answers yet and there's a bunch of speculation that the intelligence services were a bit incompetent or even supported him in hopes of taking votes away from other candidates, but things may have gotten a bit out of control and they underestimated his popularity.

Georgescu's stance wasn't super well known to most of his supporters and it's not what was being pushed, he's mostly flag-waiving, talking about sovereignty and God, not really saying much of substance, but he's palatable if you don't know his views and he was something fresh compared to the other candidates that were more known, thus giving him a boost among anti-establishment types.

He's not completely new to the scene as he was touted as potential PM by a minority political party at some point, but they also distanced themselves from him to clean up their own anti-EU image.

[throw_pm23]

To be honest, I think this guy just had more charisma. He really feels like a very natural salesman, with a smooth voice, gray hair, catchy turns of phrases, etc. While I think what he said was ultimately shallow, I see why many felt hypnotized by him. You can check out his video swimming in an icy lake, talking about your immune system just being an extension of your freedom as an individual, etc. He is definitely talented as a cult leader.

[mrtksn]

Who is considered the establishment in Romania?

As far as I can see, modern Romania appears to be ruled mostly by the Social Democrats whose candidate came 3rd and was disqualified from the second round. They also appeared to have roots in the Communist era, is that right?

Can we say that this move was to save the Social Democrats? Who were supposed run agains't the liberals and win I guess, but this pro-Russia candidate came from nowhere and the 2nd round turned into pro-Russia vs pro-West, right?

[cbg0]

PNL & PSD are establishment parties in Romania. We are a young democracy, since the end of 1989 when we ended communism with people rising up to fight in the streets for a better tomorrow, so the aforementioned parties do have roots in communism, but they are by no means communist parties.

The Social Democrats haven't won the presidency in decades and their current candidate sunk them in this election process even though he was sure to win, but some missteps he took associating himself with people connected to a huge real estate scam sunk his campaign.

Whether this move helps Social Democrats (PSD) is unlikely, as their current candidate is still just as unpopular and would most likely not win.

You are correct that because of this Russophile candidate the runoff turned into a pro-EU vs pro-Russia fight.

[mrtksn]

Why the Romanian diaspora is so much pro-Russian? I have some idea from the Bulgarian diaspora but I don't know how much it aligns with the Romanian.

[cbg0]

Not as much pro-Russian as they are anti-establishment and also surprisingly anti-EU, even though they live in EU outside of Romania. Many of them are working minimum paid jobs in tough working conditions, plus they have trouble integrating there, so they dislike their current situation and find the blame in EU & the country they're living in.

There's also tremendous amounts of anti-EU propaganda on social media which they're subjected to and most people in today's age don't bother fact checking anything so they just trust whatever's showing up on their screen.

[mebcitto]

Georgescu's voters don't see themselves as pro-Russian. They think of themselves as "patriots", anti-LGBT, and anti-establishment. They also think that we are helping Ukraine too much, at the expense of domestic issues.

These are the messages that were used on TikTok, an open pro-Russia message would have been buried quickly.

[zsombor]

I think it is more about urban vs rural voters. Latter group is more likely to vote with CG, even after emigrating. It takes more time for them to pick up western values simply because they are economically disadvantaged at home and to a lesser degree abroad as well.

[sincerecook]

Romanian culture is pretty conservative by modern Western standards. All the gay stuff is completely foreign and anathema to someone who grew up in it (most Romanians are orthodox Christians) and the political correctness/liberal propaganda is a return to the communist system but as applied to culture rather than economics. Russia is seen as the last bastion in Europe willing to stand up for traditional values.

[hiccuphippo]

At least they have more than 2 candidates (and less than 14).

[r00fus]

You know if this ever happened in another European country where the main parties were asleep at the wheel and a newcomer takes the stage - this sounds like a trial balloon to see how Europe likes cancelling democracy when it doesn't suit the ruling players.

France is another case where the main ruling parties (PS, LR and even ENS) have lost legitimacy but they paint the newcomers in ascendancy (RN, LFI) as both "useful idiots of the Russians" and "antisemitic". Then the President decides to break norms and not follow the will of the people in his choice of PM (typically should go to the party with most votes in assembly) - and faces no reprimand from the institutions.

Both of these are tests what needs to happens so Europe remains tied to NATO and the US. But these are both symptoms of a decaying order.

[jowea]

Meh, IMHO the actually important rule is that parliament has to consent to the PM. He appointed someone else that had a majority tolerating him, and then parliament changed its mind and now Macron has to pick someone else. The left only has a plurality not a majority. Why should that guarantee they get to pick a PM?

If the results were 30% centrists, 30% leftists, 40% RN would you be calling for a RN PM?

[r00fus]

Macron chose someone from the lowest-vote party (LR) to spit in the faces of the voters. The largest bloc was leftists, so they should have gotten an opportunity to form a government. But even if he decided his future was with the extreme right, choosing an RN PM would have made sense.

But no, he chose a personal ally who nobody liked.

[logicchains]

That sounds pretty anti-democratic, that the election can be cancelled because the incumbents disapprove of where the people who voted against them got their information from.

[throw_pm23]

No, there are clear laws that candidates have to mark their campaign ads as such and that they have to declare their campaign finances. One candidate did not do this.

[AdrianB1]

The court members are politically appointed by exactly these people. This is a corrupt system, has nothing to do with democracy. The Constitution was rigged from the day it was created by former Communist regime people.