Fear and anger as ‘battle for the soul of Romanian democracy’ is coming

The Romanian people of Poeni have a couple of stores, a Kebab grill and a package of stray dogs.

He also has a few voters who wanted an extreme right candidate to become president.

Poeni, just over an hour by car from the capital, is not alone in that.

Last November, Calin Georgescu, who admires Vladimir Putin and is not a NATO fan, came from the extremist strip to win the first round of Romania’s presidential elections with 23% of the votes.

In Poeni it did even better, with 24%.

Then, the Constitutional Court discarded all elections in an unprecedented movement, citing the intelligence that the Georgescu online campaign had been promoted by Russia.

In Poeni, a young voter described those “lies” statements, angry with the canceled vote. “They should have let it run to see what happens,” says Maria.

In May a new vote will be held, but Georgescu has been forbidden to participate.

In Bucharest, supporters who took to the streets shouted that the judges were destroying democracy. A handful briefly faced the police, who used tear gas.

Now the nationalist politician George Simion has entered the race and is surveying strongly.

Many Romanians fear that the central European values ​​of their country and their global alliances are still in danger.

“We are in the midst of a battle of ideas. We have no options here,” this is how a democracy activist describes mood. “The fight is now.”

In the village of Poeni there is less talk of values ​​and Russian interference, more about money in their pockets. Or rather her lack.

Next to the main road, where the alternate traffic between heavy trucks and horses and cars, men buy carbonized pieces from Kebab and pensioners chatted in dusty benches.

A public metal telephone cash is out of shape, its sign hanging as it has probably done for years.

The income here is small, prices are going up and life is difficult as in much of Romania.

“I want Georges to teach everyone. They cheated us. They promised us more pension money,” at the beginning a middle -aged woman speaks, then becomes bolder. “The others have not done anything for us!”

In the town store, Ionela is equally disenchanted.

“Young people end the university here and cannot get a job, so they go abroad. That is not normal. We need our young people to have places here to work,” complains from behind the store counter.

Millions of Romanians work in other parts of the EU and send money to their families. In Poeni you can see where some of that ends, in all the new houses.

The whole family of Ionela voted for Georgescu. He promised to reduce taxes, he thinks, but he doesn’t seem to have registered his extreme right ideology.

A man who praised extremist figures from Romania’s past, is now under investigation for alleged links with a group with “fascist, racist or xenophobic characteristics.”

When emerging after the interrogation, the politician was filmed giving a fascist style greeting.

Other villagers in Poeni saw that and know everything about the murky characters to which Georgescu has been linked.

Upon listening to his name, a pensioner grabs her from the crutch and wields her as a machine gun, shouting that she is dangerous.

Another told me that people suspected someone who arose to the prominence of nothing and their focus on sovereignty about economic sense.

“He tells us that we don’t need Europe to help us with money. So how are we going to live? Let’s be sincere: Europe feeds us!” She says.

Romania’s vote has become the issue of speaking far beyond the streets of Poeni, or even Bucharest.

When the United States vice president, JD Vance, shocked Europe with a speech in Munich, claiming that the greatest threat of the EU came from within and not from Russia, Romania cited several times.

He declared that the country’s choice had been canceled by “EDE” huge pressure “fluket suspicions. Then Elon Musk criticized the Court’s movement as “‘Crazy” in X.

Moscow would have enjoyed it.

Russia’s external intelligence agency reached an agreement with the United States that the “liberal main current” in Europe was suppressing dissent.

This of an authoritarian regime.

“It is the new world we are living in. It is the Maga ideology. They try to find partners and its partners are extreme right parties throughout Europe,” is how the journalist Ionita sees the alignment of the United States and Russia.

For him, canceling the presidential elections was not only constitutional but justified.

“We are living a hybrid war, democracy is under pressure,” he argues. The threat is real.

But Romania, which limits with Ukraine and houses a large base of NATO, now also has to deal with American hostility.

“It is a dramatic change. America is our ally, the largest and the most important security provider for Romania,” says Ion Ionis. “We need this association to go further and be stronger.

“People are worried.”

For Florin Buhuceanu, the dispute is not just political, it is personal.

His Bucharest floor, a modernist jewel, is a mini museum “dedicated to gay memory”.

On a wall there is a great photograph of the 1930s of three homosexual men under arrest. In the next room there is a wooden cabinet that once exhibited memories of the Romanian fascist era in an antique store. Now it contains images of gay icons.

Romania only decriminalized homosexuality in 2001.

“No state museum would take such donations,” says Florin, so he and his partner exhibit the exhibitions at home for guest guests.

An outstanding LGBT activist has had so many threats in the heat of this electoral campaign that security services have warned him to be careful.

Even with Georgescu disappearing as quickly as it appeared, the atmosphere is feverish.

George Simion, now considered a favorite, has been investigated after demanding that electoral officials be “unfolded alive” for prohibiting Georgescu from the race.

He describes his nationalist Aur as a “patriotic party of conservative essence” whose pillars are “faith, nation, family and freedom.”

The LGBT Mozaiq Rights Group warned about an increase in anti -Semitic, racist and homophobic rhetoric in recent weeks. He had to alert the police after the social networks messages that urged attacks on his office.

Then Florin Buhuceanu fears that his country will be thrown into the past.

“Before 2001, it was absolutely impossible for us to breathe. Now we listen again and again the same rhetoric,” he says.

Worse, the United States, Russia and the Romanian end at this time coincide.

“It is obvious that our rights are fragile and the world regroups, so we have to continue this battle,” warns the activist. “It’s not just for our community. It is for the soul of Romanian democracy.”