Recent presidential campaigns and elections in Romania were unprecedentedly long and turbulent. The first round of voting in November 2024 was annulled due to allegations of the foreign interference. The new elections were organized in May 2025 – the winner being Nicușor Dan, a conservative-liberal and independent mayor of Bucharest who defeated George Simion, a leader of the far right. The ups and downs of Romanian democracy brought our study visit to Bucharest. On the 2nd and 3rd of June, our experts and fellows: Adam Balcer, Kristina Tsabala, Andrei Macsut and Tomaš Strázay participated in the talks with local experts about the election results, plans of the new president of Romania and challenges stemming from a high-level of support for the far right. The visit was organized within the framework of “Protecting European Values” Project, co-funded by the European Commission.
On the 2nd of June our experts met with a fellow of Romanian Academic Society who would like to stay anonymous with whom we talked inter alia about the circumstances that led to the annulment of the election results at the end of 2024 and legal concerns around this decision. Our interlocutor stressed that the Venice Commission had criticized the Constitutional Court for an arbitrary character of its decision. According to the Commission, there were no strong legal provisions to annul the elections. Moreover, journalist’s investigation showed that at the very beginning Călin Georgescu, a far right candidate that won the first round was also funded by the National Liberal Party within its strategy of divide et impera directed against radicals.In consequence, this situation severely undermined the social trust in state institutions.
On the 3rd of June in the morning, we met with Cristina Guseth, director of Freedom House Romania. Ms Guseth sees the growing support for the far-right as a “furious” reaction against rampant corruption, capture of local government and state institutions by political parties and low quality of healthcare, especially outside of big cities. She stressed also a persistent endurance of legacy of nationalistic communism and interwar fascism and a strong social position of deeply conservative Orthodox Church. The persistence of influence of the totalitarian past stems from a gross negligence of civic education and lack of teaching of critical thinking about the Romanian history. Romania also struggles with considerable deficiencies of investigative journalism.
Later that day, we met with Claudiu Tufiș, Associate Professor of Political Science at the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Bucharest. Mr Tufiș pointed out to social and regional inequalities as one of the main problems in Romania. He also predicts an upcoming economic crisis linked to problems with the state budget and the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) will probably become the only relevant opposition party which may benefit from possible failures of a new government. He was also highly skeptical of ability of mainstream parties to reform themselves and underlined the existence of populist and conservative inclinations in social democratic party and among national liberals.
Finally, we met with Irina Lonean, associate professor at National University of Political Studies and Public Administration and Iulia Sbarcea, advisor in Presidential Administration in Department of Education and Research. Our interviewees stated that the growing support for the far right is correlated with the exaggerated perception of corruption in Romania, as well as a widespread belief in conspiracy theories and Russia’s interference and disinformation. Irina and Iulia stressed that Simion lost but still he won 46% of votes. In May presidential elections George Simion got support mostly from middle aged people, with primary or secondary education, especially in countryside and small towns. The regaining of their trust will be the main and highly challenging task for a new government which will depend on a shaky support of social democratic party.
Within the framework of our study visit we conducted also an interview with Bianca Toma, Program Director at the Romanian Center for European Policies (CRPE) who highlighted key Romanian paradoxes: a widespread support, but often shallow and full of contradictions, for the EU and at the same time, a spectacular rise of Eurosceptic far right which gained a particularly strong following in the diaspora living in the Western Europe. According to her, the transformation of social democratic party or its fraction to a national conservative left which will be eager to cooperate with the AUR constitutes a key long-term challenge for Romania’s democracy.
