Description: Until recently, president Dan served as mayor of the Romanian capital, Bucharest.Source: Bogdan/Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license/wikimediacommons
Our erstwhile neighbors (in times of the Second Polish Republic we bordered Romania) have experienced respective dramatic shocks in the confused, political scenery in fresh months. What is the situation in Romania after Nicușor Dan won the presidential election? Why so much support for the pro-Russian and far-right George Simion, who achieved the best consequence in the first round?
The fresh president of Romania has a lot to do with Rafał Trzaskowski. Nicușor Dan is only 3 years older than him, as Trzaskowski besides served as a multi-year head of the country's capital. Both of you besides combine experience of studying abroad and pro-European, centre-liberal views. Both Dan and Trzaskowski faced candidates representing Euroscepticism, utmost conservatism, and who could “sell” with delicately challenging résumés. However, the results of the presidential clash with the right were different for both countries.
Why did the Romanians mobilize against AUR nationalist organization candidate George Simion and Rafał Trzaskowski was defeated by Karl Nawrocki, a controversial man? Major similarities and differences in the course of the presidential elections in Poland and Romania were highlighted by Mr Artur Lorek, a politician from CISiD UAM, who specializes, among another things, in global relations and the strategy of the countries of Central and east Europe – in both cases, we faced acute polarisation, a advanced geopolitical rate and the clash of the pro-Western candidate with the typical of nationalist and populist trends. In both countries, the issues of relations with the EU, relations with Ukraine and the direction of modernisation of the state were key, but the order of these issues is not a hierarchy. The mobilisation of younger voters and diaspora – although with different results – proved important. In Romania, the centre coalition was able to unite around 1 candidate, in Poland, on the contrary – fragmentation and deficiency of clear strategy weakened Trzaskowski – the expert stressed. Mr.Lorek besides pointed to another origin that he felt helped Dan win – Romania had previously experienced attempts by nationalists to instrumentalize the state, which made the society delicate – he stated.
Description: The utmost right-wing candidate for the AUR organization received support from a large proportion of voters and electorals in RomaniaSource: George Simion președinte AUR, AUR AlianțapentruUnireaRomânilor/wikimediacommons
How did George Simion almost become president of Romania? Where did the popularity of the AUR organization come from? Before Simion faced Dan in the second round, the Romanian right saw her hope in Călin Georgesc, a candidate who unexpectedly switched to the second circular in the presidential election held at the turn of November and December last year. However, the election was cancelled, due to Russian interference and Georgescu himself was banned from taking off again.
As in Poland, in Romania too, the utmost right is peculiarly popular among residents of provincial centres, villages, little wealthy and little educated people, with the advantage of male voters. As Lorek noted – The popularity of AUR and Simion stems from a combination of social frustration, peripheral exclusion and crisis of elite representation. Its electorate is mainly young men from smaller cities and regions economically neglected, frequently with emigration experience. An crucial issue for the AUR electorate is besides targeted at foreigners and neighbouring countries and peoples of rhetoric, besides taking the form of attacks on the European Union. many Hungarian regions, despite being a political “eye in the head” of Viktor Orbán, distanced themselves from Simion and the Romanian far right.
About the political-social scenery in the Romanian state I asked Bianca Man, a 24-year-old accountant from the city of Arad, a local centre close the border with Hungary and Serbia – the annulment of the elections caused many reactions and deepened the polarization between supporters of conventional and liberal parties, especially in social media. People are disappointed and have lost religion in the fact that real change is possible or that their voice truly matters—she shared. Bianca added that most of her friends felt any kind of relief to hear about the result of the election. At the same time, she stressed that many people do not feel full represented by the elected president, but inactive believe that he is simply a better alternate to Romania's progress.
What future awaits Romania? Will Dan's presidency be just a halt on the far right to power? Bianca, although frequently under stress, anxiety, and strong business during the campaign, strives to be optimistic. Dan was not her dream candidate, but decided to support him, among another things, due to Romania's prospects of further cooperation with partners within the EU and NATO, organisations criticised by Simion on many occasions.
Romania is present at a crossroads – on the 1 hand a country with large economical possible – where IT, automotive and tourism sectors have grown rapidly, on the another hand, it is plagued by organization challenges, specified as the low level of public participation and assurance in the frequently corrupt institutions of the state. As Mr.Lorek stressed, Romania's success depends on its ability to reconcile modernisation aspirations with expanding social tensions. Dan must build a unchangeable support group for his program, without excluding centre groups, but with a distance towards populists.
Green Casper
