Communism is officially dead in Romania, but many citizens there believe freedom is anything but alive and well in the former Soviet satellite state.
In the name of “protecting democracy,” the nation’s top court annulled the first-round victory of nationalist candidate Călin Georgescu, a conservative Christian, a critic of NATO and the UN, and an opponent of his nation’s involvement in the Ukraine-Russia War. The official reason? A new, mostly declassified, intelligence report claiming that Georgescu’s victory was the result of Russian election interference. Georgescu denies he was helped by the Russians, but the court says his wildly successful social-media campaign had cold, calculated Russian fingerprints all over it.
On Sunday, thousands of Romanians — some estimates say 20,000, others say up to 100,000 —converged on the nation’s capital to protest the court’s action.
The right-wing Alliance for Uniting Romanians (AUR), Romania’s second-largest party, organized the protest. “We ask for a return to democracy by resuming the election with the second round,” AUR leader George Simion told Reuters.
Cancelled Election
Georgescu surprised the world when he won the first round of the presidential race in late November with 23 percent of the vote. He recently told military veteran podcaster Shawn Ryan that he actually won by more, but election skullduggery prevented the legitimate margin of victory from being known. The media-approved candidate, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, came in third with 19 percent.
In the second round, Georgescu was set to run against (and expected to defeat) another media favorite, Elena Lasconi, a supporter of Romanian membership in NATO and the EU and of the Ukraine-Russia War. But before the next round could commence, Romania’s Constitutional Court stepped in and voided the results. The current president, Klaus Iohannis, will remain in power until a new president is elected. A new election process is set to begin in May.
But for the thousands of Romanians who turned out in Bucharest on Sunday, that’s not good enough.
“Authorities must say why they cancelled the election, we want to see the evidence,” 57-year-old Cornelia, who attended Sunday’s protest, told reporters.
Despite the documents explaining Russian interference being publicly available, Cornelia is not the only one who remains unconvinced. Gabriel Elefteriu, deputy director of the Council on Geostrategy, looked at them closely and concurs.
The documents provide no concrete evidence of Russian state interference in Romania’s presidential elections or any links between presidential candidate Calin Georgescu and Russia,” Elefteriu writes. “On the contrary, to the extent that they shed light on anything, the documents indicate that Georgescu’s campaign simply employed highly effective digital marketing techniques, giving him a ‘comparative exponential’ advantage (according to SRI). The documents offer only disparate, circumstantial, and often trivial information presented in a way that leaves plenty of room for wide-ranging interpretations.
U.S. Interference?
Stephan Marshall, who lives in Romania, observed in Chronicles magazine that the Constitutional Court just so happened to void Georgescu’s election victory two days after the Biden administration threatened Romania with “the curtailing security cooperation, foreign investment, and (for Romanians) the critical issue of easing of travel restrictions for entering the United States.”
Marshall is referring to a press release the State Department issued December 4. “We are concerned by the Romanian Supreme Council for National Defense (CSAT)’s report of Russian involvement in malign cyber activity designed to influence the integrity of the Romanian electoral process,” the State Department said. Moreover:
The United States values Romania’s contributions as a strong NATO Ally and partner in the European Union. Romania’s hard-earned progress anchoring itself in the Transatlantic community cannot be turned back by foreign actors seeking to shift Romania’s foreign policy away from its Western alliances. Any such change would have serious negative impacts on U.S. security cooperation with Romania, while a decision to restrict foreign investment would discourage U.S. companies from continuing to invest in Romania. Through an enduring partnership, we have made important progress in our defense cooperation and economic partnership and taken steps towards visa free travel. We will continue to work together to preserve the security of our nations and the prosperity and well-being of our citizens.
What is happening in Romania, Marshall believes, “is a transparent power play by Western elites.”
In an hour-long interview with Shawn Ryan, Georgescu explained why the prospect of him being Romania’s president terrifies Western powers.
Georgescu
Georgescu is a former UN official who believes the “oligarch system” has just pulled off a coup by annulling his victory. He told Ryan the UN is threatened by him because he wants peace. He implies the UN is a fraud, that it doesn’t work to foster peace as it claims — and neither does the United States, for that matter. He says the UN “installed war.” He rhetorically asked, if the UN were truly a peace-promoting organization, why aren’t there representatives in Kiev and Moscow working day and night to bring about an end to the conflist? And why are there so many wars everywhere?
Georgescu say he doesn’t care what happens between Ukraine and Russia, he only cares what happens to Romania. His country, as far as he’s concerned, is under complete control of a corrupt government and he wants the people to have the power — not the oligarchs, not the EU, and not any outside power. Romania is very rich, he said repeatedly. It has coal, oil, gas, and great potential for hydraulic power. It’s just a matter of those resources being used to their full potential by the Romanian people and for the benefit of the Romanian people.
In addition to his sharp and accurate criticism of the UN, Georgescu’s view on NATO is enough to send the globalists into a tailspin. He points out that NATO was created as a defensive entity against an aggressive Soviet Union. But now it has morphed into an offensive entity, he believes. NATO is working to upgrade its base in Mihail Kogqlniceanu, Constanta, southeast Romania, on the Black Sea coast, into its largest in Europe. And if NATO’s reason for bulking up its base in Romania is to attack Russia, which he suspects is the case, that’s not acceptable.
Marshall contrasts Georgescu’s views with Romania’s current president, Klaus Iohannis, “an obedient servant of NATO and the European Union who reliably supports the Ukrainian government according to the instructions he’s given from Washington and Brussels.”
Strategic Importance
There’s no doubt Romania has become very strategically important to Western powers. That much is evident in the State Department’s comments on the annulled election. The military base at Mihail Kogqlniceanu is set to become the largest NATO military base in Europe. This will “give Romania an increased role in NATO’s security architecture and a position of greater strength in the Black Sea, which is militarily dominated by Russia. It will be able to host 10,000 soldiers and civilians by 2030,” according to reports.
Like Georgescu and Marshall, Titus Techera echoes the suspicion that the West’s power struggle with the East is at the heart of all this. He writes in First Things:
The Romanian government has not claimed that voting procedure was tampered with. Why did the Court so baldly upend the constitutional order? One answer is that Romania’s runoff election arrived at the crucial moment when it has become impossible to pretend that Ukraine can defeat Russia, as David Goldman has observed. Georgescu is running on a peace platform and has criticized NATO’s regime change efforts. Because Romania hosts American military bases, participates in the Aegis Ashore missile shield, and has a sizable army, it is vital to NATO’s eastern flank. A Georgescu victory could have an immediate impact on the war.
