Lessons from the Romanian presidential elections

On May 6^th, after the first round of elections – on May 4^th – a colleague from France asked me “to briefly give me your opinion on the political earthquake in Romania and its geopolitical consequences”; I answered: “the essence is this: Georgescu's slogan for ‘peace with Russia’ was really what electrified his voters, scared the political class and that's why he was brought to justice etc.

Simion wanted to take advantage of Georgescu's real popularity and set himself up as his successor, but he is an opportunist and the slogan is no longer on his lips.In any case, the majority who voted did so because he represents for them the only hopefor peace and, yes, democracy.

Now the dominant political classes want to unite to defeat him, because even though they know that he is not as determined as Georgescu and they much prefer bad/xenophobic nationalism to patriotic nationalism, they do not want to take immediate risks for business with the West and, above all, rearmament for war with Russia. For this reason, the dominant slogan is ‘we are Europeans, we do not want to be on Russia's side’".

My colleague asked me on 7^th May “what is your prognosis?”. My answer was: “Simion won't win. Because his electoral base is 40% - he was voted for by 40% of the 53% of those present at the polls. That is: 20% of all[1].

Dan will be voted for by: 1. the liberals (who had been in a coalition with the social democrats for a long time), 2. by his party – liberal, opposed in principle to the alliance with the s-ds, 3. by the Hungarian party - also liberal and which allies itself with all who co-opt it into the government, including the s-ds (and Simion's bad nationalism is fiercely anti-Hungarian, which will permanently deprive him of the vote of the Hungarians[2]);

and 4. by a fairly large portion of those who did not vote in the first round.

Why, and leaving aside the fierce political propaganda of these two weeks until the second round:

 A. People are not for the extreme right, and Simion is hiding, or not hiding at all, his already practiced extreme right-wing orientation;B. People have been so indoctrinated these 35 years that they consider capitalism as inevitable and eternal, therefore ‘Russia is a danger’, and therefore militarization and war are also inevitable;C. They have assumed the idea of ​‘illegal and unprovoked Russian invasion’, and thus feel morally comfortable;D. Simion is below the quality necessary to be convincing;

E. and because the propaganda of these two weeks will have as a taboo the future, more galloping militarization of Romania and its participation ‘without Romanian soldiers sent to Russia’ in the war against this country;

F. and because the propaganda of these two weeks will have as a taboo the fact that the majority of the population will pay dearly for the economic direction of the capitalist choice, of capitalism in system crisis and which only foresees future external investments in the arms industry”.

And that’s what happened. The turnout was 64,72%, and the score is 53,60 % N. Dan – and his victory is not a surprise, if we take into account not only the aggressive propaganda for him but also the incoherencies of Simion – to 46,40 % G. Simion. Therefore, Simion increased to 30,03% from 21,20% the first round, but from the surplus of 11,72% more voters in the second round, not him but N. Dan extracted more votes.

 Anyway, G. Simion is an explicit extreme-right politician, “lowering” Romania’s pro-war position only to the level allowed by D. Trump – he, as Georgescu, declaring themselves the most enthusiastic followers of the American president (who is similarly pro-war to the Europeans, only blackmailing them to increase the armaments spendings to 5% of GDP; not in order to better wage war?) – and, in order to attract people, to the level of declaration of “no longer financially supporting Ukraine”. But the military bases remain untouched, similarly the NATO membership.

Nevertheless, his voters still hoped that Simion would have been the only road toward peace. And, as I said, toward democracy: because – as Plato insisted – injustice is the biggest and at the same time the less bearable vice (in post-ancient times, sin) and act, and the cancellation of the second round in December 2024 between the first-round winner Georgescu and his opponent, without any proved reason, was considered, as it indeed is, an infringement of democracy, a proof of arbitrariness and authoritarian leadership. But people had no the possibility to choose the exit from the strategy of war, and they lose in front of those who considered that the EU is the only support. And the people are now divided in those who put first their immediate economic interests by supporting the insurance of the flow of loans paid for by accelerated militarization and those who are motivated by their thirst of justice and re-gain of the people’s sovereignty (transposed by them as national sovereignty).

The picture is not strange at all.  In a bourgeois nationalistic pattern, the internal “welfare”, thus the state’s domestic policy is absolutely separated from the foreign policy, and the people was educated in this deeply immoral way. Why would this be immoral? Because it is not about the inherent priority focus of every individual on his/her and family’s welfare supposed to be accommodate with the welfare of others, but about the conscious keeping of this welfare on the expense of others: and including on the expense of others’ annihilation, destruction and plundering[3]. Now, in the 21^st century, not in the Middle Ages.

This induced immorality was deepened by the modern/capitalist sectarian dividing of humans according to nation and religion. But is the appurtenance to the same nation or religion be enough to show mercy and respect towards the members of these groups, towards their dignity as human beings? The practical silence of Muslims watching the slaughter in Gaza – and before, the injustice and crime done to Palestinians – shows that the religious community is not enough. And when the same religion in different countries – as now Christianity in Europe and Russia (and in African countries, where the Western powers have imposed war and disruption, financing separatist gangs in order to again seize territories) – shows that it is not enough, either it is no longer present in the dominant propaganda or its genus proximum is not taken into account, as now the Russian orthodox Christianity is despised by the Western one, and in the Muslim countries the different branches of Islam are thought to be enemies.

We know, obviously, that it’s capitalism, but in our endeavour to fight it we should more insist on the moral aspects, contradictions and reasons. The political and economic concepts and rules are not isolated from moral and, in fact, are deeply penetrating precisely because people resonate with its rationale. Why is the capitalist sectarian division immoral? Because it implies that the human values would not be universal – specific to every human being’s desire to manifest his/her unique and unrepeatable existence and creativity, thus to have the conditions to fulfil this desire, to be respected and dignified – but only relative,according to the historical differentiations in ethnical groups, simpler, according to religion and nationality. Thus, the capitalist sectarian division aims to annihilating the universal common to all appurtenance to the singular human species. Many cultural manifestations – first, the language with its ancestral and stratified wisdom – are of course relative: but this relativity, this difference transpose just the human universality. The splendour of each culture consists in its unique form of transposition of the human universality, shedding light on its new, different facets, and which would remain unknown, thus non-existent, if a culture would be erased. And the splendour and power of the human culture as such consist just in the peaceful universal dialogue that leads to reciprocal enrichment of each national culture.

But would not the social classes division – which the entire consistent Left is based on – be a sectarian attack on the universality of the human values? Not at all, because the Marxist-Leninist model of social revolution aims precisely at dissolving the class dichotomy by abolishing the private property[4] generator of proletariat and simply creating the universal working being, able to be a dignified and really proud member of the human species.

Let’s review the figures. First, 35% of the voting population did not vote. They rejected the extreme-right and its fake promise of peace; but at the same time, they refused to accredit the system that – with all the superior performance of Dan towards that of Simion – will more decisively integrate Romania in the war against Russia.

Then, from the entire population, the supporters of war are 34,68%.  And not all of the 30,03% have such an aggressive extreme-right penchant so as to accept the war policy, including because Russia has for them a meaning of “communism”. Thus, in order to assure this acceptance by half of the population, the governing power will use not only secrecy/“no comment”, fear/self-censorship, censorship, social destruction of any really radical critical voice, and irrational anti-Russia and anti-communist ideas, but also the fait accompli position of cynical separation from and non-accountability of those who govern towards the people. And, unfortunately, this will happen, if an international wave of awakening will not change this incredible internal decay of political reason.

Simion represents the aggressive conservatism that always emerges as solution of capitalism in crisis. He is a supporter of the monarchy[5]– and yes, today, but more, in the modern/capitalist system where the people became the ultimate source of sovereignty, instead of “the prince”, and where the logical proof of this transformation of the form of government was its legal possibility to elect the representatives, to not elect the head of state is incongruent: to support the monarchy is the clear proof of antidemocratic attack even on the form of democracy. But don’t worry, even the “democratic” (neo)liberals are interested to reduce even the forms of the existing power of the people. For instance, they want to annul the direct election of the president with the election by the parliament[6].

The aggressive conservatism has manifested in Simion’s old stance of Romania’s unification with Moldova. But, surprise, even the democrats consider that, “if the polls would show a majority of Romania’s population favouring the unification”, this would be fulfilled simply by a declaration of the parliament”[7]. But where is the will of Moldavians?

Simion’s performance during these two weeks between the first and the second round was very weak. Somehow at the same level with that of Georgescu’s who continued his general discourse shrouded in the appeal to divine authority. Georgescu’s programme[8]is not xenophobe, but a naïve picture imbued with interwar perfume of mysticism, beside the idealisation of the small peasant property. But his peaceful and “distributive policy” intentions were allowed by the government to be “taken over”, in fact to be deformed, by Simion[9]. At any rate, both compromised themselves and – no, not necessarily the extreme-right attitudes which, in the absence of the consistent left, may attract many persons, but – the possibility of real political opposition. Neither the so-called “sovereign-ist” parties from the parliament have any efficiency to fight for democracy[10]and at least for limiting militarisation[11].

Therefore, the focus on the result of elections cannot and must not avoid the emphasis of their upstream and their consequences. First, for the fact that people had to vote and put hope in the extreme-right is the fault of the entire post-1989 “democratic” dominant class/“elites”, with their permanent and insistent messages caricaturing the communist values and propensity of people, equating communism and fascism, hating Russia and China, idealising capitalism and its “meritocracy” and despising the ordinary working people. Thus, the solution is not to consider the extreme-right illegal, outlawry, as someone said, without emphasising its root and its inherent role for capitalism’s preservation.And when the extreme-right parties become the only “opposition”, the result is the conscious perverting of the social thinking of many, if not of the many, in order to transform them in literal and figurate cannon fodder of the inflation of inhumanity.