Why is Nicușor Dan the right choice for Romania and what would follow his victory?

Sorin Bocancea

These elections, this round of presidential elections, in fact this process of electing the president of Romania, comes after a political crisis created by the mainstream parties, those in government. We are talking about the PSD, PNL, UDMR and the minorities. But we are talking about the decision-making pole in the entire architecture of government, namely the two major parties – the PSD and the PNL – now in a USL2, as we have been told, meaning the Social Liberal Union, which they first formed in 2012 when they attempted a parliamentary coup. Now they have come up with this new formula, trying to engineer certain electoral manoeuvres.

Together with former president Klaus Iohannis, these two parties wanted to remove their candidates, but without respecting the Romanian people’s vote. How so? By trying, as always, to cultivate a demon, a bogeyman, a scarecrow, so that whoever they put on the lists would win simply because the other candidate was worse.

The sovereignist bogeyman

This recipe for voting for the lesser evil was also used in 2000, when the extremist leader Corneliu Vadim Tudor was pushed into the second round to get votes for Ion Iliescu, after Ion Iliescu had lost the elections in 1996. This recipe was also tried during the Iohannis period, when Viorica Dăncilă, a person who had proven her gross incompetence when she was at the head of the government, was pushed to the forefront with Iohannis’s knowledge.

The same scheme was followed, as if the same brain had devised the campaign strategy, cultivating George Simion so that either Ciolacu or Ciucă would win. Ciucă was pushed to reach Cotroceni, but Ciolacu obtained more votes than Ciucă.

At that point, the two parties failed to reach an agreement and both lost. Neither made it to the second round, but an extremist whom no one expected entered the presidential race and was helped in his campaign on social media by at least one party, the PNL.

The PSD put votes in the ballot boxes for George Simion, and the PNL financially supported Călin Georgescu, so that the two parties are to blame for the emergence and rise of these two extremists in the second round of the presidential elections. We know very well what happened to Călin Georgescu when the Constitutional Court annulled the elections in violation of procedures, but it was a measure that had beneficial effects for Romanian democracy, only to be followed by the re-run of the elections. Of course, Călin Georgescu could no longer enter the race, as the previous elections had been cancelled due to fraud in his campaign, namely undeclared funds, with him declaring 0 lei for the campaign when it turned out that millions of euros had been spent on the campaign, and it was also proven that a state actor, in this case Russia, was heavily involved in his campaign on TikTok. In the case of Simion, who is considered the electoral heir of Călin Georgescu, it was also initially stated that no money had been invested in the campaign.

This individual, who has long been known as a turbulent character, raised in the stands of football stadiums, I am referring to George Simion, reached the second round with an electorate already formed by Călin Georgescu, growing amid the guilty silence and collusion of the authorities. Because in November 2024, Diana Șoșoacă – another extremist leader with strong ties to Moscow, being the only member of parliament at the time who went to the Russian embassy, even though the Romanian authorities had declared an embargo on relations with Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. The Romanian authorities excluded her from the electoral competition, in Simion’s case there was much stronger evidence for not allowing him to run.

George Simion and Călin Georgescu as non-options

In the case of Călin Georgescu, there was also strong evidence to prevent him from running in 2025. But I am referring now to George Simion, the only extremist allowed to run despite having broken law after law, given that he has defended Legionary Movement ideology, given that he has called for the public flaying of members of the Constitutional Court, given that he has stated very clearly that if he becomes president he will violate the constitutional order and install Călin Georgescu in his place as president and, above all, given the clear and obvious of his status as persona non grata in two states with which Romania has special relations – namely the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, and I do not need to explain what Romania’s special relationship with the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine consists of, the latter being at war and acting as a buffer state that is now holding back Russia’s claims on the former communist Europe, i.e. on the former Soviet camp, the socialist camp.

Ukraine is not only fighting for itself, it is fighting for Europe, and Romania has given it as much support as it can, and this candidate has clearly stated that if he becomes president, he will cut off all support for the Republic of Moldova and declare neutrality. This is exactly Putin’s agenda. George Simion’s acceptance of Moscow’s agenda was clear, but, I repeat, the seriousness of his presence in the electoral race stems from the fact that this individual had no way of exercising the office of president from the outset, given that he has been declared persona non grata in two neighbouring states.

How can you, as president, resolve relations with neighbouring states when you are persona non grata? What did Simion say? He declared he would do the same with the leaders of the two countries.

In other words, he was going to declare Maia Sandu persona non grata, as well as Vladimir Zelensky. This individual should never have been allowed to run for office because he has a disastrous record compared to what is required of a presidential candidate. But the Romanian authorities, and especially the ruling parties, and here the PSD-PNL is to blame, let him run because they needed this dragon again, hoping that this would enable them to impose Crin Antonescu.

Crin Antonescu as a false option

Crin Antonescu, one of the leaders of the 2012 coup along with Victor Ponta, a man who spent 10 years snoozing in Brussels, did not get involved in politics, but sent his wife to the European Parliament, putting her on the list at the time, while he was the leader of the PNL. After a 10-year sinecure on European money, now taken out of mothballs, brought out of hibernation, he was put on a platter in front of the Romanians as a viable option. The two parties are primarily to blame for their offensive attitude towards the Romanian electorate, and the angry vote for the extremists was primarily generated by the two parties, the PSD and the PNL, which in December declared that they had understood the message. They understood nothing.

If they had understood the message, they would have come up with a candidate acceptable to the electorate, not an individual who had already damaged Romanian democracy years ago, an individual who had been idle for 10 years and had done nothing for Romania. He lived off the money earned by his wife, whom he sent to the European Parliament, so that he could then come and run for the highest office in the state.

The punishment that the electorate inflicted on the two parties, the PSD and the PNL, was normal. Neither the PSD nor the PNL have understood, even now, how offensive they were to their electorate, because their electoral offer was catastrophic. This is how Nicușor Dan came to the fore. He is the founder of the USR party, the Save Romania Union, but he resigned from the party following a dispute over the traditional family, which, from this point of view, is to the liking of the PSD electorate, the traditionalist electorate that campaigns for the traditional family and is against the LGBT movement. This man has since become mayor of the capital, entering his second term as a result of his achievements there. He started a war with the real estate mafia and began rebuilding all the water and sewerage systems in Bucharest, which were simply rotten. The people of Bucharest understood that this man had begun to restart the capital.

I was saying that the crisis generated by the two parties, which indulged in electoral engineering, led to the rise of extremism. They are to blame for the emergence of Simion, Diana Șoșoacă and Călin Georgescu. The two major parties are to blame, guided by President Iohannis, who is largely responsible for the crisis he left behind after his terms in office. I hope that once a certain normality is restored in Romanian political life, former President Iohannis and Prime Ministers Ciolacu and Ciucă will be brought to justice, because they knew, they had information about the rise of extremist parties and they allowed them to be used for electoral purposes.

These three people – Iohannis, Ciucă and Ciolacu – should be tried for high treason. Because they betrayed Romania’s interests by allowing and even cultivating the rise of extremism in Romanian society, even though they had all the legal levers at their disposal to limit these deviations from democracy. Catastrophic statements were made by these extremist leaders and no one touched them. There was the mobilisation of the military junta, which included active members of the Romanian army; nothing has happened to anyone so far. Did former general Ciucă know that some Romanian soldiers were taking leave and going to Africa as mercenaries, led by that individual Potra? I believe so.

They knew, the services informed them, but they took no action. That is why I maintain that these three sinister figures of the current Romanian political scene – Iohannis, Ciucă and Ciolacu – must appear before a court for high treason. Because of them, Romania has reached the brink of saving its democracy from an anti-democratic hurricane orchestrated by Moscow. It was very easy for Moscow to operate in Romania with these traitors, with this treacherous triad: Iohannis, Ciucă and Ciolacu.

That is why George Simion made it to the second round of the presidential elections. And he ended up going to France to insult President Macron, to insult the French people because, he says, they have lost their connection with God and their ancestors. Who is he to judge what the French people want? We have reached some absolutely absurd situations for the Romanian state. Fortunately, this strong gesture made by Romanian society at the polls will lead to an understanding of the situation by our European partners, namely that it was a phenomenon that got out of control and that these individuals do not represent Romania.

Romania narrowly avoided a catastrophe

This is how extremism has reached Romania. Because Russia does not want to invade Romania, nor can it – Russia was unable to conquer Ukraine, which it thought it could conquer in three days. But Russia is interested in destabilisation, it is interested in anarchy. It is interested in doing what is happening in Bulgaria today. And not just today, but for a year or two. A state that can no longer find peace, can no longer establish institutions, with people, with legitimacy. That is what Russia wanted to do in Romania. Because if Simion had reached Cotroceni, he would have done what he said: early elections. A country that is held together by elections and referendums is an unstable country, an insecure country, a country that is shunned by all serious partners, both political and, above all, economic.

Let us not forget that the grim spectre of this individual’s rise to the Cotroceni Palace led to Romania’s collapse on the brink of junk status, led to the collapse of the leu, led to the abstention of major partners in terms of investment. Some damage has already been done.

Let us hope that the new president, a European with a high degree of professionalism and intelligence, will play a positive role. I believe he is the most intelligent person to enter the Cotroceni Palace of all those who have been there before. We are talking about an international mathematics Olympiad winner, a man who could teach mathematics at any university in the world. And a man of proven intelligence is taking the seat at Cotroceni, when the spectre of a turbulent individual with a poor education was looming.

Romania narrowly avoided a catastrophe and, fortunately, the majority of citizens understood that they had to mobilise and go out and vote so that this catastrophe did not happen. But looking at the percentages obtained by this turbulent, anti-democratic individual named George Simion, we see that over 5 million Romanians voted for him. Talking about over 46% of the vote, that is a huge score. And this shows that at the end of his term, Klaus Iohannis left behind a Romania in turmoil, a dissatisfied Romania, where the level of discontent could have led to political catastrophe.

The stabilocracy of the major parties

Fortunately, the wisdom of the other part of the population was stronger and we did not end up in that catastrophe. We will now have to – and I believe that Nicușor Dan, who is a non-confrontational person, a person of dialogue, reasonable negotiation and listening to the other side – mitigate the radicalism of this population, which, in a state of panic, expressed themselves in a vote of anger, in a vote of revolt against an arrogant government interested only in its own status and in remaining in power. We have a government that was created over time by this harmful association between the PSD and the PNL. I have said since the first association was formed that it would seriously affect democracy in Romania by eliminating the possibility of succession in government.

The two parties have joined forces across the country and, no matter who you vote for, we are still there. And, naturally, the desire for change has moved outside the system, towards populist parties. This is how the sovereignist parties AUR, SOS and POT rose to prominence. Through this cartelisation of the major parties, which have agreed to remain in government in any form and simply swap prime ministers between themselves. And at the local level, they have changed the electoral law so that mayors and county council presidents are elected in a single round. Under these conditions, only a mayor who does not commit a criminal offence or die will leave office, because in the first round, the incumbent mayor always wins.

This electoral law must be amended, because we see that there is discontent throughout the country, right down to the level of town halls and county councils. People are fed up with the same mayor serving ten terms in office, whom they cannot replace because there are always enough people dependent on the town hall to vote for him. The current law has eliminated the possibility of ventilating the political-administrative apparatus at the local level. The two parties said: we will keep our people in power at all costs. And they divided up the counties and communes. And from that moment on, what is the point of voting, when you know full well that your vote has no effect? Change is no longer possible!

The protest vote

Then came the protest vote, given to people with absurd speeches that even a fourth-grader would laugh at. On the populist side of the political spectrum, people emerged with all kinds of aberrant projections, typical of those with mental health issues. Nevertheless, a collective madness directed against the political system itself was created, which was about to bear fruit. This collective madness has in any case caused damage to Romanian society, which will not disappear with the installation of Nicușor Dan at Cotroceni. It will be the mission of the new president to eliminate all the harmful consequences of this anti-democratic, anti-European and pro-Russian collective madness. And it will also be the task of the future prime minister. We hope it will be Mr Bolojan, who has proven himself to be a good manager, better suited to the executive role than that of president, because he is a man with experience in public administration, a man with authority and integrity.

I hope that this tandem that is now emerging will succeed in bringing Romania out of this division. In any democracy, there are two camps in the second round – some support A, others support B. But we have reached a form of radicalism in which the two sides no longer talk to each other, or if they do, it is mostly in the form of invective and insults.

I believe that a very difficult task lies ahead for the Dan-Bolojan duo. Leaving aside the governing parties, we come to the USR, which withdrew its support for its candidate, who proved unworthy of the office she was running for, committing absurd acts during the campaign.

This party must learn to work in a coalition and come to power. And the two major parties must understand that the leaders who brought them here must also leave and work together in a government to repair the damage they have caused.

Many are sceptical about Nicușor Dan’s ability to put together a functional government that can quickly fix the serious problems created by Ciolacu’s irresponsible government, which has put Romania deep in debt, brought it to the brink of civil war, and allowed a military junta to plot a coup. I am talking about Potra’s military junta, which was to be coordinated by Georgescu and other legionary movements. They knew this and are guilty of concealing it. And I think they should come up with a new team.

And this is where local organisations will play a role. I see that, at least in the PSD, voices are beginning to be heard from the grassroots. I am referring here primarily to the mayor of Buzău, who has clearly stated that the party leadership must go because of the damage they have done and that we need a government with people who are not necessarily from the party. They can be proposed by the party for the party seats in the government algorithm, but they should be technical people, specialists, people with good knowledge of economics, finance and the military. Because we are at war. Even if people don’t want to admit it, Europe is at war. You couldn’t put a president who is the supreme commander of the army in the person of Simion, who has proven to be Russia’s man, when you, Europe, are fighting Russia on the front in Ukraine.

I repeat: a great danger has passed over Romania. And, fortunately, the majority decided well, but a lot of caution and diplomacy will be needed from those who are now taking power, because tension still remains in society, and individuals such as Simion, Georgescu, Șoșoacă and Gavrilă will not sit idly by, they will not be satisfied with that. They will continue to fuel the conflict, and I believe that this will only end when the Romanian authorities, left alone by political pressure, will apply the law in their case, because what these sinister political figures have done is provided for in criminal law. And criminal law should be applied to all four of these individuals. When the law is enforced, Romania will no longer have the problems it has had precisely because of the failure to enforce the law for political reasons aimed at electoral engineering, which the PSD and PNL have been trying to do since last year.

The figure of Nicușor Dan

Nicușor Dan has not made a deal with any party. He has not received support from the centrist parties. Local leaders have rallied around Nicușor Dan without him asking them to or having any agreement with them. He could not reject them, of course, because every candidate needs support from everywhere. But Nicușor Dan has not committed himself to anyone. There were dissatisfied leaders within the parties, I am referring to local leaders, but none of them shook hands with Nicușor, and the national leaders left it ambiguous. We did not have any national leaders who openly supported Nicușor Dan. 

I am talking about the big parties, not the extra-parliamentary parties, which showed their support for him from the beginning (the Popular Movement Party, the Right Force, Reper). These small parties and civil society supported Nicușor Dan. That is why Nicușor Dan does not owe anything to anyone in the big parties. And the small parties that supported him have gained political capital that will probably serve them well for years to come. That is why I doubt that Nicușor Dan will become a man of the system because, I repeat, he does not owe much to the party system. He has only worked with small parties.

And the USR supported him, but he didn’t ask for it, there was no agreement, no handshake. There was no official agreement on this issue. And so it is difficult to see any trend, any reason why Nicușor Dan would become a man of the party system when he came from outside and took the anti-system stance.

Simion also presented himself as being on the anti-system side, even though he came from the second largest party. Simion is a man of the party system. The only real anti-establishment figure was Nicușor Dan. How can Simion say he is anti-establishment when he is part of the party system? He is only in opposition, but he is part of the political system and leads the second largest party in Romania.

What next?

Nicușor Dan could set the tone for reform, first and foremost by appointing credible people to positions of power. Especially in important positions. I am talking about the intelligence services, which have vacant positions because Iohannis refused to appoint anyone else. You cannot reform institutions if you do not have a legitimate person at the helm with a clear mandate from the President of Romania. The president can also get involved in appointing the president of the CSM – the Superior Council of Magistracy. He has some very important levers with which he could start state reform, and I believe that Nicușor Dan will not back down from starting a reform, with Bolojan as his partner. Because Bolojan also came and stirred up the waters of Dâmbovița when he was president of the Senate. Let’s not forget that he promulgated the Law on the Confiscation of Unjustified Assets – a law that took a long time to be promulgated because Iohannis was afraid of such a thing, lest his corrupt allies rise up against him.

We have people who are willing to carry out reform. And now this wave of protest has brought to the presidency a man from outside the party system who will appoint as prime minister a man who has proven that he has done extraordinary things in his hometown of Oradea and that he has quickly done what needed to be done in Bucharest. So the prospects are very good. I don’t think the two will miss this opportunity to truly reform the Romanian state because this mandate was hard won, with a lot of fear – fear of extremism, of what it would mean for Romania to turn eastward instead of westward, with all that that entails. And I believe that the two parties to blame – the major parties to blame for this crisis – will be forced to carry out the reforms they have refused to do, covering them up with the welfare of their own leaders, vote buying and compromising the electoral system. In other words, at any cost. I now believe that we have reached the moment of truth, as they say in football, where they will have to choose between reform and extinction.

Photo: Nicușor Dan (source: Nicușor Dan)

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