According to an INSCOP poll conducted between 7 and 12 November, the young and charismatic president of the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR) has 19% support for the 24th of November elections, second only to Marcel Ciolacu (25%), prime minister of the Social Democratic Party (PSD).
Judging by opinion polls, the duel between the two is likely to take place on 8yh of December. Simion is 5 points ahead of Elena Lasconi, mayor of Cambulung, who is running as part of the centre-right Alliance for the Salvation of Romania (SSR). The PNL Liberals are on course to suffer a crushing defeat after two terms of President Klaus Iohannis, who is not eligible for re-election. Their candidate, former Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca, may not even pass the 10% barrier.
During this campaign, which started very early, Simion did not stop using Donald Trump's name. On November 6th, he made no secret of his satisfaction with the Republican candidate's triumph over Kamala Harris. "It's a victory of the patriots over the globalists. I hope all this neo-Marxist and transgender ideology will end and leave us alone. We can do it in Romania too," he wrote on Facebook, attending the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the annual gathering of conservative movements from around the world, in Washington in February.
Things couldn't be clearer: the head of AUR is counting on Donald Trump's comeback to cement his second place in the polls. "Compared to what we've seen so far, the outcome of the US election is interesting for two categories of voters: liberals concerned about the issue of rights and unhappy about the displacement of the conservative right, and the radical right," says political scientist Ovidiu Voicu. "For the sovereignists, it represents a driving force, a new energy to mobilise their supporters and get them to vote.
To promote his campaign, Simion relies on influential, if disingenuous, intermediaries. Dan Diaconescu, a Români TV presenter where he advertises the AUR candidate daily, has been convicted of sexual relations with minors and child prostitution. The public prosecutor's office in Constanta recently announced that three other crimes had been handed over to it in connection with these cases. Meanwhile, Victor Mikula, who has four million followers on TikTok and advertises himself as an AUR supporter, has received a suspended sentence for non-compliance with arms and ammunition legislation. The owner of Steaua Bucharest, the country's biggest football club, the flamboyant and media-famous Gigi Bekali, who has already spent three and a half years in prison on corruption charges, is standing as an AUR MP in the 1 December parliamentary elections.
With his stance against abortion and in support of the traditional family, Simion is targeting especially Orthodox and evangelical Christians, whose numbers have risen sharply in recent years and, according to analyst Cristian Pirvulescu, now number "between 500,000 and one million people" in Romania. "Simion pays a lot of attention to religious issues because it needs this electorate," he explains. Trump's victory should help the far-right candidate insofar as it "gives him consistency and guarantees him the support of this electorate and the MAGA [Make America Great Again] groups in Romania. This is important for the second round", the political analyst continues.
However, the AUR candidate is not the only representative of the Romanian political scene who worships Donald Trump. He appeals to sovereignists, conservatives and opportunists alike. The leader of the SSR, Elena Lasconi, also sent her congratulations to the future American president. Ludovic Orban, former prime minister and president of the Force de la droite (FD), who belatedly joined the centre-right alliance, said Romania had "nothing to gain from Trump's victory".
The independent candidates Cristian Diaconescu, a former foreign minister, and Calin Giurgescu, a former special rapporteur at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, are also Donald Trump supporters, with 5-7% of the vote each. For his part, Mircea Joana, a former Romanian ambassador to the US and deputy secretary-general of NATO until September, refrained from expressing his Trumpism because, according to political analyst Ovidiu Voicu, his political background makes him "a friend of the Americans, regardless of who is in the White House."
Pro-Russian and hostile to any support for Ukraine, Simion has also benefited from the invalid declaration of the candidacy of MEP Diana Jovanovic Szoshojac by the Romanian Constitutional Court. The president of SOS Romania, the muse of the anti-vaxxer movement and expelled from the AUR for a position she considered too radical, became known to Europeans when she was expelled from the Strasbourg parliament during a debate on abortion last July. In her programme, she wanted to annex Ukrainian territories, namely northern Bukovina and Maramuresh, Bujak and Snake Island.
This former Simion associate accuses Social Democrat candidate Marcel Cholakou of being behind a political manoeuvre aimed at facilitating Simion's qualification for the second round of the December 8 elections. In such a scenario, the INSCOP poll effectively puts the current PSD prime minister in a very favourable position (55.5%) against his AUR opponent (44.5%). In the 2000 presidential elections, Ion Iliescu (PSD) won by a large margin against Corneliu Vadim Tudor. I BGNES and Europa Libera, Libertatea, g4media
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