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Pro-EU Romanians form a unity coalition ahead of election rerun

​Romanian independent far-right presidential candidate Calin Georgescu gives a statement outside his voting station after the annulation of the presidential elections, in Mogosoaia, Romania, on Dec. 8, 2024.

Romanian independent far-right presidential candidate Calin Georgescu gives a statement outside his voting station after the annulation of the presidential elections, in Mogosoaia, Romania, on Dec. 8, 2024.

REUTERS/Louisa Gouliamaki
Willis Sparks
By Willis SparksDecember 11, 2024
Willis Sparks
Willis Sparks is a senior editor for GZERO Daily. He is also a Director in the Global Macro practice at Eurasia Group, where he has worked since 2005. He has made speeches on international politics on every continent except Antarctica. Willis holds degrees from Brown University, the Juilliard School, Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, and the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris. He also holds an honorary degree from the Moscow Art Theatre School. A native of Macon, Georgia, Willis has worked as a stuntman at New York's Metropolitan Opera. As a child, he declined an opportunity to spend an afternoon riding the Great American Scream Machine, a rollercoaster, with Ronald McDonald, for money. He has never regretted that decision.
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Romanians are still absorbing the shock of a first-round election result that saw a previously unknown ultranationalist, pro-Russian candidate finish in first place in the race for president and a collection of new parties with pro-Russian platforms capture about one-third of the vote. The country’s constitutional court annulled the result last week following the release of evidence that Russia had interfered, but the country’s pro-EU parties and politicians are working to build a unified front ahead of an election rerun sometime early next year.

Leaders of the Social Democratic party and their current coalition partners, the center-right National Liberal party, the opposition centrist Save Romania Union party, and the ethnic Hungarian party UDMR, are trying to forge a common election platform to pool their strength against any recurrence of the first result. They may even agree to back a single presidential candidate.

Declassified intelligence found that someone created thousands of social media accounts to promote pro-Russian candidate Călin Georgescu – who said he had spent no money on his campaign – on TikTok and Telegram. On Monday, Romanian investigators arrested two men for allegedly planning to trigger protests at the court’s annulment of the result.

The Kremlin denies any political interference in Romania, a former Warsaw Pact country that’s now an EU and NATO member.

bucharestromaniacălin georgescusocial democratsromanian politics

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