{"id":182032,"date":"2024-11-25T13:39:16","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T13:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/25\/romania-in-shock-after-far-right-candidate-wins-first-round-of-presidential-election\/"},"modified":"2024-11-25T13:39:16","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T13:39:16","slug":"romania-in-shock-after-far-right-candidate-wins-first-round-of-presidential-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/25\/romania-in-shock-after-far-right-candidate-wins-first-round-of-presidential-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Romania in shock after far-right candidate wins first round of presidential election"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Romania<\/div>


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A far-right and little-known NATO critic has won the first round of Romania’s presidential election after polls predicted he would win less than 10% of the vote.<\/p>\n

Calin Georgescu, an independent candidate, won with a 22.95% share, seeing off the incumbent prime minister Marcel Ciolacu of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), who had been the clear favourite to win the first round.<\/p>\n

Mr Georgescu, 62, will face off against reformist Elena Lasconi of the centre-right Save Romania Union in a run-off on 8 December. She won 19.17% of the vote.<\/p>\n

It is the first time in Romania<\/a><\/strong>‘s 35-year post-communist history that the leftist PSD has not had a candidate in the second round of a presidential race.<\/p>\n

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\n Elena Lasconi, the Save Romania Union party candidate for president. Pic: AP
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The result threatens the country’s staunchly pro-Ukraine<\/a><\/strong> stance. Mr Georgescu has refused to explicitly say whether he supports Russia but has said Romania’s best chance lies with “Russian wisdom”.<\/p>\n

Romania is a member of NATO<\/a><\/strong> and the European Union<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The president serves a five-year term and has significant decision-making powers in areas including defence spending, national security, foreign policy and judicial appointments.<\/p>\n

The result highlights voters’ anti-establishment sentiment. In a Facebook post, Mr Georgescu said he voted “for the unjust, for the humiliated, for those who feel they do not matter and actually matter the most… the vote is a prayer for the nation”.<\/p>\n

The campaign also focused on the soaring cost of living, with Romania having the EU’s largest share of people at risk of poverty.<\/p>\n

Some 9.4 million people, around 52.5% of eligible voters, cast their ballots before polls closed on Sunday.<\/p>\n

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\n \"Romanian\n <\/div>
\n Image:<\/span>
\n Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu has been knocked out the running. Pic: AP
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According to his website, Mr Georgescu holds a doctorate in pedology, a branch of soil science, and held different positions in Romania’s environment ministry in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

Between 1999 and 2012, he was a representative for Romania on the national committee of the United Nations Environment Programme.<\/p>\n

Mr Georgescu does not have a clear political agenda but has promised generous spending and no tax hikes. His videos on TikTok are also popular, amassing 1.7 million likes.<\/p>\n

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Read more:
UK in AI arms race with Russia<\/a>
Bar staff to be trained to deal with spiking<\/a>
Army officer charged over dummy grenade alert at airport<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ms Lasconi, a former journalist, has been running on an anti-corruption reformist agenda. She has also supported increased defence spending and continued aid to Ukraine.<\/p>\n

If she wins the final vote, she will be the first female president in Romania’s history.<\/p>\n

Romania will also hold parliamentary elections on 1 December that will determine the country’s next government and prime minister.<\/p>\n

One political commentator said Russian<\/a><\/strong> meddling to give Mr Georgescu an edge could not be ruled out in the election.<\/p>\n

“Based on Georgescu’s stance towards Ukraine and the discrepancy between opinion surveys and the actual result, we cannot rule [that] out,” said Sergiu Miscoiu, a political science professor at Babes-Bolyai University.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A far-right and little-known NATO critic has won the first round of Romania’s presidential election after polls predicted he would win less than 10% of the vote. Calin Georgescu, an independent candidate, won with a 22.95% share, seeing off the incumbent prime minister Marcel Ciolacu of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), who had been the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/24\/11\/768x432\/skynews-elena-lasconi-romania_6757467.jpg?20241125113432","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2309,50,724,212,34471,8625,8613],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182032"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182032"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182034,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182032\/revisions\/182034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}