that we can welcome Saurian Onita, president of the think tank expert forum. It’s a great pleasure to have you with us on the program today. Uh as we just saw in that report, the last ballot was, you know, a messy affair to say the least and it’s been a rocky few months since.
So what kind of an election can we expect to see this time around? There will be election with three polls, three uh competitors. One is a MAGA movement with two candidates George Es’ Simeon that you mentioned and another one Victor Pongal former prime minister. So these are the sovereigntist movements. There’s one candidate in the middle of the system of the current coalition left rights of the mainstream parties and this is a vote for if you want geopolitical continuity pro west but also a very corrupt regime and very um noncredible with the public. And this is.
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why they have a problem even finding uh individual candidates for each party. And then you have the last one, the reformist movement again with two candidates, Nikou Shorten, the mayor of Bucharest and Elena Lazuli which you mentioned. And they also have a conflict of you know personalities between them. Uh so every camp is undermined by some you know uh political incompetence so to speak.
So these are the three main movements if you want that to run in these elections and the chances are pretty balanced I would say. Now it really is a crucial election isn’t it because it could propel the ultra nationalist George Simeon to power and of course a fright victory could lead to Romania veering from its pro-western path.
Give us a picture of what a Simeon victory could look like. Yes, it is a very uh you know uh scary perspective because Romania never had an openly anti-western president. Uh but having said that, if he manages to win the presidency, there will be a permanent conflict between him and the parliament because the uh constant the Iranian constitution makes it so that the president cannot act alone, cannot dismiss the government.
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While early elections for the parliament in arena are almost impossible to organize. So we are stuck with the current parliament which generates a government and then there will be a president and there will be a permanent uh you know very uneasy cohabitation between them. So this is a perspective but of course it will be very bad for Romania’s geopolitical alignment and especially for the support that we have been giving to Ukraine.
So just uh to hold you on your point there, what are then the geopolitical consequences at risk in this election, especially with respect to NATO and Ukraine? Uh it is I mean the worst possibility is for Romania to become another Hungary if you want uh with a lot of internal political cacophony. So this would be different from Hungary but you know to become an obstacle to become somebody making troubles in the European affairs uh um practicing a rhetoric which is anti-western xenophobic uh anti-immigration although we don’t have.
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much immigration so they will import here into Romania a lot of cultural wars actually which are more characteristic for the United States. So there will be a mirific cation of Romanian politics with all the consequences you know for the position visa v Russia and Ukraine and Simeon’s win could also test Romania’s ties to the European Union couldn’t it you know a test for the rise of of nationalism in the EU especially with the cohort of existing Eurosceptic leaders like the prime ministers of hung
of Hungary as you just mentioned and Slovakia as well. Yes, they will try to be like Organ and Fits, but there will be limitations on such a path because you know if you are a Romanian nationalist, you cannot be very good friends with the Hungarian nationalist, right? So I would say George Simeon actually he tried to get closer to Georgian for example and to the political corresponding political family in the European Parliament which they did.
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Uh so at least in the last year they tone down the rhetoric uh of hostility towards our immediate neighbors. They speak so much about claiming territories from the Republic of Moldova or Ukraine. So we saw a little bit of moderation in their discourse because they try to be acceptable in the European Parliament and in Europe in general.
But uh you know at the bottom of their heart we know that they have these values of xenophobia of nationalism and uh actually a lot of skepticism of the rules of the European Union. Now the last ballot was of course annulled following evidence of Russian interference. So what are some of the measures that are being taken to counter similar threats this time? Well actually the evidence was pretty thin on the ground.
So it’s been pushed a lot in the media but uh you know probably there was some intervention from Russia because if they are everywhere in the region and they try to interfere everywhere why would they spare Romania? However, the Romanian authorities haven’t been able to prove
