Valeri Velikov, Radio Varna, 15 March 2025
The deadline for submitting applications to the Romanian Central Electoral Bureau to participate in the presidential elections expires today. There are quite a few question marks surrounding the candidates who will be allowed to participate, as well as voters’ attitudes. One of these question marks is whether the leaders of the two Romanian far-right parties, the Alliance for the Unification of Romanians and the Young People’s Party, George Simion and Ana-Maria Gavrila respectively, will stand and, if they are registered, whether either of them will abandon the other, as they have already announced.
We will comment on the nature of the Romanian presidential elections, especially in the context of the dropping out of the incumbent favourite Georgescu, with journalist Vladimir Mitev, an analyst of political processes in Romania and author of the blog “Bridge of Friendship”. Hello!
Hello!
Let’s tell our listeners at the beginning, who are the main candidates running in the presidential race in Romania?
Yes, it’s almost clear who they are. In addition to what you said a moment ago, yesterday, George Simion managed to register and even with 600 000 signatures, which is a sign of support for him. And today, we are expecting Ana-Maria Gavriila, who is the leader of the Young People’s Party, the other party that is supporting Georgescu, to submit documents as well. But these are candidates from the so-called sovereignist camp.
I suppose it is also interesting who the pro-European candidates are, roughly speaking. One of them is Crin Antonescu. This is an establishment person. I remind you that his wife, Adina Vălean, was a European Commissioner. He is a representative of the coalition that is currently governing. It is made up of the two big traditional parties from the transition and the Hungarian party.
However, Antonescu does not generally arouse much enthusiasm among the people. I recall that in the elections that were cancelled in December 2024, it was the representatives of the ruling coalition who failed to make it to the second round. That is to say, there was a tug-of-war at both ends of the political system, with the NGO sector on one side and the sovereignists on the other. This centrist tendency in Romania seems to have weakened now. But let’s see the results, of course.
The other candidate who has a pro-European orientation is Nicușor Dan, the mayor of Bucharest. He himself, as I have said more than once, has an NGO background. He started out as an activist for social change, initially at Bucharest level, and then acted through the civil sector party, the Save Romania Union. But he eventually split from it.
He has some support in the big cities, especially in Bucharest. But outside the big cities it is perhaps not so recognisable, and perhaps it is there that the sovereignist tendency is more important.
I have already had the opportunity to say in our media that in Romania, the candidates at first sight, and perhaps at second sight, seem to be positioned clearly in one direction of the political spectrum, but in fact each of them has some opening in the other direction.
I mean, Crin Antonescu is on quite good terms with Victor Ponta. And Victor Ponta is also a candidate and he is a representative of the sovereignists in the Social Democratic Party. On the other hand, Nicușor Dan is something of a conservative NGO man, I even think he used that expression for himself. There are various indications, various gestures on his part that he has also a kind of opening to the conservative segment in society.
In the same way, I had the opportunity in another medium to say that even George Simion, who is sometimes criticised in this way for being a nationalist or for being pro-Russian, has actually allied himself at European level with Giorgia Meloni and the sovereignists in Poland, who are anti-Russian.
And this is also interesting to analyse and to think about, because it seems that each of the more significant candidates has an opening to the other segment in politics, roughly speaking. Even though there is polarization, each of the candidates is trying to connect different elements of both poles. And the question is, of course, who is going to be the one to win, which combination is going to win.
But doesn’t that make them harder for voters to recognize, given that, roughly speaking, some of them are trying to be both in their positions?
I think each of the major candidates has their supporters and is not lacking character. Rather, what I am talking about as an aspect of a bridge, is the expectation of the Romanian state itself. I mean, we see that there was a statement, for example, by the interim President Ilie Bolojan that Romania would not want to choose between Western Europe and the United States.
Something that, incidentally, we have heard from our government in Bulgaria. Our countries, Bulgaria and Romania, are more or less on the periphery still somewhat of the West. And they cannot afford to confront one of its parts.
And because of that, I suppose the candidates themselves, whether they have their origins in one segment or the other, they are also trying to be, I think, somewhat open to dialogue with elements on the other side, because it is just a very complicated situation. And if they do win and become president, certainly, I think, the line that they will have to lead will be to be a kind of bridge also internationally, but at the Romanian level, between the elements of the West that seem to be drifting apart now.
Are there any of the main candidates who stand out from the rest? Is there anyone who is being commented on in society as a favourite?
I think Georgescu stood out, but he wasn’t allowed to run. There are quite serious allegations against him. Maybe over 20 years in prison he could get if the charges are proven.
It was clear that he was somehow inconvenient for an important part of the Romanian state or society. His removal leaves the sovereignist camp without a clear leader. There are now several leaders who are less so. We will have to see to what extent they can attract the votes of the whole bloc. And that’s one thing, that there is no clear leader in the sovereigntist bloc. And for another thing, there is both support and skepticism for each of the candidates who seem more significant.
I don’t see, at least at the moment, a clear leader. Perhaps Nicușor Dan has some aspects of his demeanor that suggest something more might be expected of him. He has already made statements on foreign policy issues. He has positioned himself in favour of Ukraine and also in favour of the so-called ‘Weimar Plus’ format.
The Weimar triangle is Poland, Germany and France. And Weimar Plus includes other countries that are also pro-Ukrainian and are in Europe. So, it looks like so far only Nicușor Dan is giving any signs that he wants to be a statesman and as of now is positioning himself foreign policy-wise.
I haven’t noticed the other candidates making any more prominent statements at the moment. Maybe when the campaign really gets underway we’ll hear what they think on the various issues.
What are people in Romania commenting on? You are communicating with many of them. This removal of Georgescu, how is it perceived – as external interference in the elections, as pressure from someone, as there being objective reasons for his removal? What is the opinion on this?
I think that even the supporters of Georgescu themselves expected him to be removed. I remember a few days ago, when the Constitutional Court decision came out confirming his disqualification, Georgescu himself said that he wanted to be a politician of peace and did not call for protests or violence or any kind of reaction. And accordingly, his supporters seemed to accept that and there were not any excesses in it in the evening.
I think there is something going on or at least we can speculate whether there is something going on. We’ll have to see it in the coming days. But I think that the Romanian state itself can make sure that it adopts the Georgescu line, but not that Georgescu himself implements it.
I mean, for example, the rector of one of the influential universities in Romania, which is a university where gender studies is taught, that is to say, theoretically a university that should be anti-Trump, this rector has nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize because of his efforts for reconciliation in Ukraine.
And Trump was just looking for someone to nominate him for it…
Yes, I see it as a sign that the Romanian elite itself is looking for some gestures, some openings to Trump. The question is who is going to make that connection. And that’s what the fight is about.
In many ways it is being indicated that Georgescu should not be that person, at least from the point of view of the Romanian state. But I am sure that whoever becomes President must have good relations in some form with the American administration. For that, we will have to see how things develop in the coming days and weeks.
I think that the Romanian state itself has an interest in not alienating the US or not alienating Western Europe. It has an interest in being a bridge. That is being indicated for now by its leaders.
I wonder, what is the mood in society itself? Will the outcome of the election lead to greater division or will it unite society to some extent?
I think here too it is difficult to answer unequivocally so far. It seems to me that the cancellation of the elections that happened last year was a shock to society. It showed that there was a failure in the way the process was organised. If we are looking at the state, it is important that it gives signs that it is somehow managing to restart the political process and to include people who have been excluded and who feel excluded.
How can this be done? Obviously, the elections that are coming up in May will be one step in that direction, but it should not be the only one. And there should gradually be some renewal in the system and some people who defend the interest that has always remained suppressed.
What I mean is that, in general, in Romania, people from the big cities, from the middle class, have resources and have relatively good access to power, whereas it seems to me that people who support Georgescu somehow feel excluded and isolated. And this contradiction within Romania itself, which may have geopolitical dimensions, but is purely Romanian after all, this contradiction has to be answered somehow. Some kind of development opportunity must be given to the people of those areas that are perhaps less developed or more conservative. There has to be some way of representing them in government, insofar as a democracy also implies a rotation of elites at the top of the state.
We see what is happening almost all over the Balkan Peninsula at the moment. This was the annulment of the first round elections in Romania. The drama of the Constitutional Court’s scrutiny of our elections
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, there are also tensions. Not to mention Serbia, where now the weekend will be the culmination of protests, especially in Belgrade. Is there any comment in Romania, and also from your point of view as a journalist, on what this destabilisation of the region might be due to at the moment?
It seems to me that our region is dependent on external circumstances, especially on what is happening in the West. We are seeing divisions emerging in the West. On one side is the American administration, on the other side is Western Europe.
Our region has a peculiarity in that economically it is very much linked to Western Europe, but on the other hand many of the countries, almost all the countries in our region, are part of NATO and have traditional ties with both Israel and the Republicans in the United States. So for our region, there is a mixing of different influences and so when there is some kind of rebalancing between them, it inevitably affects our region and there is some kind of, perhaps, division, opposition in our region as well.
Not to mention the many people who still have nostalgia for socialism.
In Romania in particular, this is also one of the explanations for the rise of Giurgescu. There is really a mindset that Romania was once the sovereign. There is an understanding that it was sovereign in the 1980s, when it relied heavily on an economy based on its own resources, its own market, its own technology. In Romania, for example, airplanes were made, or a tanker was produced and so on.
That is to say, Romania had certain engineering successes, and therefore in the old generations, but also in the new generations who somehow inherited thinking from the old generations, there is a certain thinking from the 1980s that has remained in place. And Georgescu, among other things he does as a speaker, embodies in some ways that thinking from earlier times, which in some new settings should probably give more opportunities to people who are not so connected to Western capital. Because Romania’s development over the last two decades, if not more, has been linked to attracting Western capital. But this capital has limited opportunities. It mainly goes to the big cities. And people who are excluded from this development by foreign capital tend to be left with the mindset that they have to rely more on the links within Romania, on the links between each other, on their own resources.
This also gives rise to a contradiction which is not easy to resolve, but which the Romanian state should somehow address.
I can see very similar features and parallels, by the way, in everything we are saying about what is happening in Romania and in Bulgaria.
Well, that is a subject for many interviews, if I may comment.
And another topic for many other interviews is, for example, because we like to measure ourselves very much against the Romanians, we see how the country itself is developing, including infrastructurally, when we go there, unlike here. And that impresses us.
What impresses me is that here, in our country, highways were built, at least in southern Bulgaria, when there was what is called a stabilocracy, i.e. one party was linked to the state, there was stability, predictability, the companies that had to win the contracts won them and so on. At the moment when competition for political power arose in our country, road construction declined significantly, as far as I can see. Similarly, in Romania, for a long time, there didn’t seem to be as much building going on, and the Romanians were somewhat envious that Bulgaria was building as many motorways as they had.
However, in the last few years there has been a sort of stabilocracy between the two major parties and, accordingly, the money that should be used for motorways is being used again. A lot of things have been built and continue to be built. That’s good…
Especially for the parties that are building the highways, it is very good.
Yes, yes, that’s right. I mean, maybe I’m being a bit cynical. It’s good to build highways, but it involves certain balances in society obviously.
Obviously, and as we usually say in such cases, we are talking about Romania, you think of Bulgaria. Thank you very much at this stage.
Photo: The Romanian interim president Ilie Bolojan doesn’t want to choose between Europe and the USA (source: Public domain)
Subscribe to the channel of the blog “The Bridge of Friendship” in YouTube, where a number of video and audio interviews are published! The blog can also be followed in Facebook and Twitter. Its Telegram channel is here. And here is its Substack account.
About Author
Discover more from The Bridge of Friendship
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
