{"id":408159,"date":"2024-11-26T12:11:37","date_gmt":"2024-11-26T11:11:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/11\/26\/presidenziali-romania-georgescu-lasconi\/"},"modified":"2024-11-29T16:50:35","modified_gmt":"2024-11-29T15:50:35","slug":"romania-presidential-election-georgescu-to-face-lasconi-in-the-runoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/11\/26\/romania-presidential-election-georgescu-to-face-lasconi-in-the-runoff\/","title":{"rendered":"Romania presidential election: Georgescu to face Lasconi in the runoff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – The second round of presidential elections in Romania<\/strong> will be a clash between the ultranationalist candidate C\u0103lin Georgescu<\/strong> and Elena Lasconi<\/strong>, leader of the liberal opposition USR party. Surprisingly, the independent Georgescu won a relative majority in the first round\u00a0on Sunday (Nov. 24), while Lasconi trailed the incumbent premier, the Social Democrat Marcel Ciolacu<\/strong>, who resigned along with the leader of his coalition partner,\u00a0Nicolae Ciuc\u0103,<\/strong> of the\u00a0other liberal party NLP, by just 0.3 percent. The runoff is set for Dec. 8 and will have significant\u00a0consequences for the Balkan country.<\/p>\n

With\u00a0100%<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0the counting completed, the final results officially handed Georgescu, an\u00a0independent candidate from the populist far right<\/strong>, the top spot with 22.94 percent<\/strong> of the vote. It\u00a0was a surprise<\/a> that no one predicted and\u00a0created havoc in Romanian politics<\/strong> as the electoral platform of Georgescu\u00a0— who\u00a0campaigned on TikTok\u00a0<\/strong>– is markedly pro-Kremlin and anti-NATO<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

So much so that, speaking from Strasbourg during the\u00a0plenary of the European Parliament, Liberal group leader Val\u00e9rie Hayer<\/strong> publicly called on the social network’s CEO “to appear before this Parliament to assure us that no DSA violations<\/strong> have taken place” during the election campaign, referring to the EU digital services regulation that imposes transparency requirements on online platforms.<\/p>\n

\"romania<\/a>
Independent candidate Calin Georgescu (foto: Octav Ganea\/Afp)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In second place, that is, to secure a spot in\u00a0the Dec. 8 runoff<\/strong>, USR candidate Elena Lasconi<\/strong>\u00a0narrowly prevailed with 19.18 percent<\/strong> of the vote, only 2740 votes more than Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu<\/strong> (leader of the Social Democratic party PSD). Polls had predicted Ciolacu as\u00a0the big favorite in a head-to-head contest that should have seen him challenge George Simion<\/strong> (who took 13.86 percent), head of the far-right AUR party in which Georgescu had also been active.<\/p>\n

In contrast, Ciolacu finished third with 19.15 percent<\/strong> and therefore stepped down<\/a>, remaining in office for current business until the next general election<\/strong>, scheduled for Dec. 1. This vote could yield a Parliament decidedly shifted to the right<\/strong>, if voters decide to reward again the ultra-nationalist and pro-Russia right-wing forces, which between Georgescu and Simion garnered about 36 percent<\/strong> in the first round of the presidential elections. According to some analysts, radical right-wing parties could win more than a third of the seats<\/strong> in the new hemicycle.<\/p>\n

Together with Ciolacu, Nicolae Ciuc\u0103<\/strong>, secretary of the NLP, which governs in Bucharest in coalition with the PSD,\u00a0stepped down\u00a0as well after winning only 8.79 percent<\/strong> of the vote –the worst result ever for the PSD and the NLP, the two largest parties in post-communist Romania. The new leader of the NLP, Ilie Bolojan<\/strong>, asked his party’s voters to support Lasconi in the runoff<\/strong>\u00a0to keep the Balkan country on a pro-European and pro-NATO course.\u00a0No official endorsement has yet come from the PSD for the USR candidate, but it is likely just a matter of time.<\/p>\n

\"Marcel<\/a>
Outgoing prime minister Marcel Ciolacu (photo: Andrei Pungovschi\/Afp)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another far-right party, SOS Romania,\u00a0<\/strong>will surely side with Georgescu in the second round, as will\u00a0AUR, while it is unclear what the other conservative parties will do. Georgescu has publicly expressed sympathy for some Romanian leaders of the 1930s and 1940s, including Ion Antonescu<\/strong>, who collaborated with the Nazi occupation forces<\/strong>, labeling them “national heroes” and “martyrs.”<\/p>\n

With the end of the\u00a0era of the liberal Klaus Iohannis<\/strong>, elected head of the Balkan state in 2014 and again in 2019, Romania may now face five years of leadership by an anti-system president close\u00a0to Vladimir Putin<\/strong>. This risks calling into question (among other things) Bucharest’s international positioning <\/strong>and support for the Ukrainian resistance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first round of elections to elect a new head of state saw the surprise victory of independent, anti-system candidate C\u0103lin Georgescu. The Social Democratic Premier Marcel Ciolacu finished third behind liberal Elena Lasconi. Bucharest’s international positioning in the post-Iohannis era may depend on the outcome of the runoff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":408120,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[28131,29785,29805,29786],"class_list":["post-408159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-calin-georgescu-en","tag-elena-lasconi-en","tag-marcel-ciolacu-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408159"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":408183,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408159\/revisions\/408183"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}