Opinion
Guest Essay
May 16, 2025
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/opinion/romania-election-simion-dan.html
By Vladimir
Bortun
Dr. Bortun
is a Romanian political scientist and a lecturer at Oxford University.
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. In 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.
Sign up for
the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert
analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every
weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
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 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.
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.”
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário