The first of the two candidates in the runoff is 38-year-old George Simion, head of the extreme right-wing, pro-Russian Alliance for the Union of Romanians party.
A former football hooligan, Simion now describes himself as a “sovereignist” and is a fan of both US President Donald Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
He was the clear winner of the first round of the election on May 4, garnering almost 41% of the vote.
His opponent on Sunday is 55-year-old Nicusor Dan, the independent mayor of Bucharest. Dan is a mathematician, former anti-corruption activist and a man with clear pro-European, largely liberal and at times moderately conservative positions.
He came second in the first round, albeit far behind Simion on 21%.
As an outsider I most definatly am missing something but it’s mad to me that Romania, being one of the few countries to successfully boot Russia out of their country would even toy with this. I guess it’s similar to what other countries have seen like Reform in the UK etc
For what it’s worth, Simion seems to have a more pro EU, pro NATO stance than the rest of his party. He has called Putin a war criminal, called for greater economic sanctions against Russia, expulsion of the Russian ambassador, and has called Russia the greatest threat for Europe. So he is very much in line with the EU right, like Meloni.
The funny thing is, we’re still quite rusophobic. You’ll find few people that approve of russia or putin. Russian talking points and propaganda however, that we gobble by the bucket.
This is what underfunding education for decades and TikTok does to a country. Romania has the highest number of TikTok users per capita in Europe.
There are always stupid people. If someone like Russia is allowed to intentionally manipulate them, they can be made into puppets.
What the fuck is happening
Incompetent incumbent administration + russian propaganda + a lot of angry angry people after the cancelling of the first set of elections.
The cold war being won without firing a shot.
Russian influence.
I’ll never understand people so stupid that they disconnect from reality and vote against their own interest. Especially when it’s that obvious.
Propaganda is a hell of a drug.
All of the Russian state-sponsored misinformation campaigns have probably paid for themselves ten times over with how strongly they’ve succeeded in tipping the scales of geopolitics in Russia’s favor.
Yes sure. But at some point you have to willingly accept that “everyone” out there is lying except your propaganda outlet and disconnect from reality. That is so obviously BS to me that it’s hard to imagine to fall into that trap. Even though I witnessed it first hand with friends and family.
From my understanding of how they operate, it’s less “Everybody is lying except this one source” and more “Everybody in my bubble appears to be saying these things, so it must be true.”
The strategy utilizes armies of bots and bad actors whose purpose is to infiltrate and influence specific demographics on social media into accepting the Russia-supported narrative. The people who buy the narrative will then in turn parrot it to other members of their social circles to legitimize it. So when the western media outlets and elected officials who took Russia’s money repeat these same ideas, they are more easily accepted as true.
