We knew it was coming.
Ahead of the first round of Romania’s presidential elections on May 4, it was obvious what would happen. This was, after all, practically a rerun of an election held last November that was won by a far-right candidate, Calin Georgescu. The Constitutional Court, citing Russian interference, canceled those elections and later barred Mr. Georgescu from running. But that merely cut off a head of the Hydra. The next far-right candidate in line, George Simion, stepped up — and won the first round even more comprehensively than his predecessor, taking 41 percent of the vote.
Worse is perhaps to come. On Sunday’s runoff, Romanians will vote for either Mr. Simion or Nicusor Dan, an independent candidate who scored 21 percent of the first-round vote. This race is tighter, but barring a surge in turnout, Mr. Simion looks likely to become the country’s next president. That would give him, a self-described Trumpist, power to appoint a prime minister, direct foreign policy and command the armed forces. For Romania, a country of nearly 20 million people, it would be a very bad turn of events.
It would also be entirely foreseeable. Far from sudden, the far-right’s rise in Romania is rooted in decades of economic failure: Chronic underdevelopment, widespread insecurity and mass emigration have generated deep anti-establishment anger, on which Mr. Simion and his Alliance for the Union of Romanians party feed. Even now, traditional mainstream parties have little to say about the broken economic model that has brought us to this point. That dereliction has spurred the country’s disastrous slide to the far right.
The costs of our economic model are clear to see. Though Romania posts respectable growth numbers, it consistently performs among the worst in the European Union on many key social indicators, with 28 percent of the population at risk of poverty and a further 17 percent living in severe material deprivation. Despite successive increases in the minimum wage over the past decade, the median wage is barely over five euros an hour, about one-third the European Union average.
These are the fruits of over three decades of free-market orthodoxy, which has seen mass privatizations of industry, decreased security in the labor market and successive cuts to public services — all underpinned by strikingly low taxes, which stand at 16 percent for corporations and 10 percent on all personal income. This low-tax nirvana, which most American conservatives wouldn’t even dream of, comes hand in hand with the European Union’s largest budget deficit and a growing debt pile.
Yet most politicians seem strangely unconcerned with this state of affairs. Mr. Dan is no exception. The mayor of Bucharest since 2020, he has built his profile around fighting corruption and nefarious real estate interests. But he emphasizes the need for public spending cuts and has little to say, if anything, on socioeconomic justice. Recently, he stated that he is on the political right because it “prioritizes work instead of laziness.” This is in a country with the second-highest rate of in-work poverty and one of the lowest shares of G.D.P. spent on ” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>welfare in the European Union.
The one parliamentary force on the center-left, the Social Democratic Party, is little better. The party did not even stand a candidate in the election, instead choosing to endorse Crin Antonescu, an old figure of the mainstream right who failed to make the runoff. What’s more, in a coalition government since the end of last year with the right-wing Liberal Party, the party announced an extensive austerity plan that would disproportionately hit students and pensioners. Though no longer in office — the coalition collapsed the day after the first round — the party showed where its priorities lie.
Given this political landscape, it was only a matter of time until anti-establishment populists took electoral advantage — and how. Of the country’s 47 electoral districts, 36 went Mr. Simion’s way, proof of his widespread appeal, and support was strongest among groups most affected by the country’s lack of opportunities. Rural areas backed him and more than 60 percent of the diaspora, which is one of the largest in Europe, voted for him. This is what the focus on the role of Russian interference and unregulated social media misses. Behind the far-right’s rise, as elsewhere, is economic insecurity.
That’s not to say that far-right populists offer a truly different economic model. On the contrary, Mr. Simion has called for cutting welfare benefits and downsizing the public sector. He and his party have focused most of their economic agenda on catering to the domestic business class, especially the construction and hospitality sectors, while promising tax breaks and subsidies for farmers and small and medium enterprises. For poor Romanians, it’s just more promises of tax cuts. Even Mr. Simion’s flagship policy aimed at ordinary people — to build one million affordable homes — was candidly admitted to be mere political marketing.
For all its supposed iconoclasm, this is hardly the recipe for economic nationalism. The best guide to what lies in store, perhaps, is Viktor Orban’s Hungary. While Mr. Orban oversaw the strengthening of the domestic business class (his son-in-law included) in ring-fenced sectors like real estate, he also reinforced foreign corporate interests in other areas, particularly manufacturing. Similarly, while Mr. Simion aims to restore majority state control over natural resources, the pre-eminence of multinationals in other sectors — which often sees them pay little to no tax — is more than likely to persist.
This is the unspoken truth at the heart of Sunday’s contest. The two candidates may have different geopolitical affinities, with Mr. Simion more aligned with the Trump administration and Mr. Dan with the European Union — putting them on different sides of the question of military aid to Ukraine. But both share an allegiance to the business class, just different parts of it, and have no plans to alter the country’s fundamental economic framework. This is common practice for the far right. Despite capitalizing on popular anger against established elites, it is itself an elite project for state power. In the process, the ordinary people it claims to represent are left behind.
The kind of party that could represent them is still missing in Romania, despite overwhelming support for an agenda of state-led job creation, better-funded public services, poverty reduction measures and public housing programs. Such a political project, one that can offer a genuine alternative to the status quo, is more urgently needed in Romania than ever.
Because right now, we’re falling into the abyss.
Vladimir Bortun is a lecturer in politics at Oxford University and the author of “Crisis, Austerity and Transnational Party Cooperation in Southern Europe: The Radical Left’s Lost Decade.”
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