Thanks for your detailed summary, and the astute commentary. The results of this election are worse than I imagined, and give a clear confirmation of the strong tilt towards extreme right ideology in Romania. And it's hard to see how this can be undone in the years to come; if we look at the situation in Hungary, we can expect this to last for many years... This is really disturbing and very depressing... And Moldova will find itself between a rock and hard place...
Hi Ian, yes this first round was depressing for anyone supporting a strong EU and who worries about the scenario you explain. That said, there is still a second round and Romania is a parliamentary system. The president is not weak - but not nearly as strong as in the US (for example). We know for sure a large scale political shake-up / realignment is underway. How it all plays out... we'll have to see.
"The fact that Simion did so poorly in Moldova, even among the subset of dual citizens, indicates that there isn’t a major appetite for talk of union right now."
Not sure this would be my takeaway from this. AUR and Simion are a fascist extreme-right choice that is likely to cause havoc for Romania in the EU (a la Orban) and would support Trump-friendly and Kremlin-friendly policies esp. in the Ukrainian war but also more generally in terms of European and East European security (e.g. AUR voted against the law for Romanian army to be able to down Russian drones in Romanian airspace).
In the Venn diagram there isn't a large overlap with the official (dual-citizen) Romanian diaspora in Rep. of Moldova (i.e. historically the region of East Moldova) which would more likely support collaboration with the EU and NATO, strengthening Eastern European defenses and would generally prefer to avoid having Russian drones rain destruction on civilians in Moldovan cities as they do in Ukraine. Just like Călin Georgescu, AUR and Simion will probably simply act as Kremlin proxies. And in light of the dismantling of democratic institutions in Georgia and the US by Kremlin-affiliated candidates, it is unlikely that such candidate would get enthusiastic support from those who would view East Moldova historically as part of Romania within a democratic EU framework and with political stability.
If you look at the voting patterns of Romanian diaspora in Eastern Europe (Rep. of Moldova, Poland, Hungary, Czech Rep., Baltic Republics and even Georgia), support for pro-Russian Simion was low ranging between 15-20% on average. Instead Pro-European votes got clear majorities in most of the region. I would view the results in East Moldova mostly through this regional prism and security concerns.
I think we are saying the same thing from different angles. With Simion as the front-man for this ultranationalist far-right movement I think he will cast a long shadow on any top policy ideas he is going to pursue. If there's one thing to learn from the US it is that negative polarization gets very powerful in times of great political stress (note the Democrats supporting free trade suddenly). My point is that should Simion win he will take all the air out of the union conversation and create negative perceptions.
That doesn't need to be for everyone - and there are many who favor union without his other baggage. But it is likely to have an effect on the dialog.
Anyhow, that's my thought. As always, even mentioning union touches on a lot of deeply held beliefs. My hope was to keep it in the analytical space about his likely effects.
Thanks for your detailed summary, and the astute commentary. The results of this election are worse than I imagined, and give a clear confirmation of the strong tilt towards extreme right ideology in Romania. And it's hard to see how this can be undone in the years to come; if we look at the situation in Hungary, we can expect this to last for many years... This is really disturbing and very depressing... And Moldova will find itself between a rock and hard place...
Hi Ian, yes this first round was depressing for anyone supporting a strong EU and who worries about the scenario you explain. That said, there is still a second round and Romania is a parliamentary system. The president is not weak - but not nearly as strong as in the US (for example). We know for sure a large scale political shake-up / realignment is underway. How it all plays out... we'll have to see.
"The fact that Simion did so poorly in Moldova, even among the subset of dual citizens, indicates that there isn’t a major appetite for talk of union right now."
Not sure this would be my takeaway from this. AUR and Simion are a fascist extreme-right choice that is likely to cause havoc for Romania in the EU (a la Orban) and would support Trump-friendly and Kremlin-friendly policies esp. in the Ukrainian war but also more generally in terms of European and East European security (e.g. AUR voted against the law for Romanian army to be able to down Russian drones in Romanian airspace).
In the Venn diagram there isn't a large overlap with the official (dual-citizen) Romanian diaspora in Rep. of Moldova (i.e. historically the region of East Moldova) which would more likely support collaboration with the EU and NATO, strengthening Eastern European defenses and would generally prefer to avoid having Russian drones rain destruction on civilians in Moldovan cities as they do in Ukraine. Just like Călin Georgescu, AUR and Simion will probably simply act as Kremlin proxies. And in light of the dismantling of democratic institutions in Georgia and the US by Kremlin-affiliated candidates, it is unlikely that such candidate would get enthusiastic support from those who would view East Moldova historically as part of Romania within a democratic EU framework and with political stability.
If you look at the voting patterns of Romanian diaspora in Eastern Europe (Rep. of Moldova, Poland, Hungary, Czech Rep., Baltic Republics and even Georgia), support for pro-Russian Simion was low ranging between 15-20% on average. Instead Pro-European votes got clear majorities in most of the region. I would view the results in East Moldova mostly through this regional prism and security concerns.
Hi arita,
I think we are saying the same thing from different angles. With Simion as the front-man for this ultranationalist far-right movement I think he will cast a long shadow on any top policy ideas he is going to pursue. If there's one thing to learn from the US it is that negative polarization gets very powerful in times of great political stress (note the Democrats supporting free trade suddenly). My point is that should Simion win he will take all the air out of the union conversation and create negative perceptions.
That doesn't need to be for everyone - and there are many who favor union without his other baggage. But it is likely to have an effect on the dialog.
Anyhow, that's my thought. As always, even mentioning union touches on a lot of deeply held beliefs. My hope was to keep it in the analytical space about his likely effects.