Georgescu has also condemned Nato’s installation of a ballistic missile defence shield in the Romanian commune of Deveselu. This is significant, as the president of Romania is commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces and presides over the Supreme Council of National Defence. Georgescu’s foreign policy views were ultimately responsible for his departure from AUR, with senior members saying that he was damaging the party’s public image. AUR’s presidential candidate, George Simion, dubbed by some as the “Romanian Trump”, finished fourth with 13% of the vote.

Presidential powers in Romania are relatively limited in domestic affairs when compared to matters of national defence and foreign policy. But Georgescu has won popularity at home by focusing on Romania’s ongoing cost-of-living crisis, calling for a stronger emphasis on reducing the country’s dependence on imports by ramping up the local production of energy and supporting agricultural communities. Indeed, Georgescu has a special interest in such matters, as a graduate of the Nicolae Bălcescu Institute of Agronomy and holder of a doctorate in soil sciences. He also previously served as the executive director of the United Nations Global Sustainable Index Institute in Geneva, Switzerland and Vaduz, Liechtenstein.

Georgescu’s political rise challenges the caricaturing of Right-wing populist politics as “anti-expert” by the Left-liberal intelligentsia. He has shown that the professorial worldly type — in his case, a senior expert in sustainable development who has worked for the UN — can find electoral success as an anti-establishment candidate of the Right. Thanks to policies centred on national self-sufficiency and effective campaigning via platforms such as TikTok (where he has shown both his love for attending church and competitive edge in judo), Georgescu has blended his social traditionalism with an embrace of modern technology to impressive effect. He has rejected cultural liberalism and circumvented “legacy media” in the process.

It remains to be seen how the run-off in the presidential election will pan out. Will there be a “Stop Georgescu” pact in which the Social Democratic Party encourages its supporters to shift their support to Lasconi? How will the leadership of AUR, the party which pushed Georgescu out of its ranks over his views on security and defence, advise their voters? The Christian democratic and socially conservative National Liberal Party won 9% of the vote share: how will these voters break in the decisive second round?

One thing is certain: if much of Europe previously didn’t know about the unlikely first-round victor of the Romanian presidential elections, they do now.

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Dr Rakib Ehsan is a researcher specialising in British ethnic minority socio-political attitudes, with a particular focus on the effects of social integration and intergroup relations.

 

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