Romanians on the march after the arrest of the presidential favorite

Tens of thousands of Romanians marched in the Bucharest square, the Romanian government headquarters, over the weekend, after the favorite of the presidential elections was welcomed to interrogate.

Calin Georgescu was collected on his way to register as a candidate, and was then accused of trying to overthrow the constitutional order, as well as the membership of a neo -fascist organization.

“Georgescu’s mentality is the same as Trump’s mentality,” Lavinia said with approval, while running her three -year -old daughter’s chair through a sea of ​​Romanian tricolor flags.

“He will listen to our opinion, as we hear it. We came here today by freedom and democracy.”

Georgescu’s arrest day came an unexpected turn.

The weapons, the grenades and the gold bullion buried under the floor tables were found in raids in 47 properties by the Romanian police aimed at a network, allegedly directed by a former French legionary and head of militias in the democratic republic of Congo.

The current whereabouts of Horathiu Potra is unknown, but his alleged links with Georgescu have only added to the intrigue.

While Horathiu Potra has admitted illegal possession of weapons, Georgescu has denied all irregularities.

In just three months, Romania has gone from being a stable and loyal member of the European Union and NATO, to a country where a pro-Russian figure of the extreme right has come from almost anywhere to be a favorite for the presidency.

Georgescu led the first round of last December elections, but the runoff vote was annulled after Romanian intelligence revealed that Russia had been involved in 800 Tiktok accounts that supported him.

The election will be again on May 4 and 18.

For Georgescu’s critics, photographs of the cache of arms are the best proof of their danger to the Republic.

For their supporters, they are the last episode of being mud, the convicted attempt of a corrupt regime to resist the inevitable change inspired by Trump.

Along the way, a lonely bus musician played the same melody again and again in an electric piano, while passing a sea of ​​protesters.

“We are talking about the freedom to choose our own president,” said Oana Eftimie, vice president of the Romanian patriotic party, another right -wing group.

One of the peculiarities of the Calin Georgescu phenomenon is that it seems to have reached beyond the existing nationalist parties such as Aur, the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, which won 18% and 63 seats in the Chamber of Deputies in the parliamentary elections on December 1.

Some surveys put it as high as 40%.

Georgescu has eclipsed both the leader of the Fuego brand, George Simion and the leader of SOS Romania, Diana Sosoaca.

Oana Eftimie dismisses charges against Georgescu, and some of his sponsors, such as reheated slander:

“He was prosecuted for all that, and the case was closed last year for lack of evidence. Therefore, he is not a fascist, we are not fascists, we are only normal people who want to be able to choose our leader and exhausted with those who are in power now.”

In a quiet apartment not far from the noisy protesters, Elena Calistru, president of Funky Citizens, a liberal and non -governmental organization, admits that the anguish of the protesters on a corrupt and complacent elite, has some basis of fact.

“But if you have a house and the roof is dripping. Don’t burn the house. You fix the roof, right?

“Unfortunately for us, the discomfort we see throughout Europe, the lack of leadership, the lack of politicians capable of speaking with the general public without trying to compete with the populists, is also present in Romania.”

As a loyal ally of the United States, Romanian military analysts are containing breathing about the fate of a substantial American military infrastructure in Romania, which includes 4,500 US personnel. “Dacian Spring”, a great exercise of NATO scheduled for spring, has postponed until after the May elections.

The candidates have until March 15 to register their candidacy for presidential elections. If the Romanian Constitutional Court says that Georgescu cannot endure, due to levels level against him, how will Americans react?

The American vice president JD Vance made an apparent criticism of Romania at the Munich Security Conference last month.

“If your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it was not very strong to start.”

“Now, the good news is that I think their democracies are substantially less fragile than many people seem to fear,” Vance added.

Romanians on both sides of the political spectrum seem unvolved.