More foreign affairs in a crazy, mixed-up world

Part 2: Romania restarts its presidential election after court annuls outcome

I don’t know how Romania will “fix” what has just happened in its aborted presidential election, or if it even can be fixed. But the latest bizarre political developments in Eastern Europe’s sometimes other-worldly funhouse do not augur well for the near term, or indeed, for the future beyond.

While I never served in Bucharest as a U.S. diplomat during my career at the Department of State, I have followed its politics for years with a certain detached amusement, bordering on astonishment. The dark nature of its Balkan politics, whether during the murderous regime of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu, or its more recent leaders during the democratic era since the fall of Ceaucescu in the 1990s. The dictator and his wife were publicly hanged by a furious mob in a bloodthirsty scene reminiscent of Mussolini’s downfall in Italy half a century earlier.

That tableau continues to symbolize for me the murky depths of the Romanian transition, roiled by rampant corruption, cronyism, suspicion, a generalized fear of the unknown, superstition, and all-pervasive conspiracy theories—above all, dread of the Russian “bear” lurking just offstage, waiting to reimpose Stalinist-era secret police and informants around every corner.

Despite all that, Romania has somehow managed to gain full membership in the EU, although its stubborn refusal to “act” European for extended periods has long mystified observers. Just when you think it has joined the rest of the modern world with forward-thinking policies, its government reminds you that Romanian rules do not always allow what passes for “normal” behavior elsewhere.

Witness the recent emergence of an obscure COVID-19 denier, Euro-skeptic, and ultranationalist supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin. who managed to snag the top spot in the recent first round of Romania’s presidential election. He was Calin Georgescu, a little-known professor who won a surprise 23 percent of the vote in the November 24 election.

A frowning Calin Georgescu, leader in Romania’s now-cancelled presidential election. Photo courtesy AP/Vadim Ghirda

Had the December 8 runoff occurred, he would have faced the number-two vote-getter—a reformist mayor, Elena Lasconi, from a small opposition party, who won 19 percent, just edging out Social Democratic Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu. Lasconi was president of the Save Romania Union, until recently the third-largest party in Romania’s parliament. Her party lost ground in parliamentary elections held just after the nonpartisan presidential election, however.

Elena Lasconi, who came in second in cancelled November election. Public domain photo

A recount confirmed the results of voting by 9.4 million Romanian citizens, who clearly snubbed the country’s ruling parties—who had dominated the government in an unwieldy alliance for several years, alternating grand-coalition prime ministers over a three-year period.

A total of 13 candidates were on the ballot. Both outgoing Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu and former Liberal Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca, currently president of the Senate, who came in fifth, then endorsed Lasconi in the runoff, as did almost all other candidates. Only right-wing leader George Simion, head of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, endorsed Georgescu.

So far, despite the surprise, things went according to European rules, more or less. The Romanian constitutional court at first ratified the results of a laborious recount, before abruptly deciding to set aside the entire election and mandate a new one from scratch, citing evidence of interference by external parties revealed in declassified intelligence documents—revealed suddenly by the outgoing, term-limited president, Klaus Iohannis.

Ciolacu praised the court's decision to annul as “the only correct solution after the declassification of the documents ... which show that the result of the Romanians’ vote was blatantly distorted as a result of Russia’s intervention.” Iohannis, in office since 2014, called the court's decision a matter of “national security,” and confirmed he would remain in the role until a new president was elected.

According to Iohannis, Romania was a “stable, safe and solid country, one that remained safely and solidly pro-European and an ally to NATO,” as he told the BBC. Last reelected in 2019, Iohannis has become extremely unpopular since then for his increasingly authoritarian behavior—with 90 percent of Romanians expressing a negative view of his leadership in 2023 polls.

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, wildly unpopular but still around. Public domain photo

Both Georgescu and Lasconi condemned the court’s decision, with Georgescu openly hoping the judges who made it end up “in hell.” Lasconi condemned the court's ruling as “illegal” and “immoral,” saying “the Romanian state has trampled on democracy.”

“Whether we like it or not, from a legal and legitimate point of view, nine million Romanian citizens, both in the country and in the diaspora, have expressed their preference for a certain candidate. We cannot ignore their will!” She had been rising in national polls, and hoped to win the cancelled run-off.

Fear that gullible voters were somehow manipulated by influencers on TikTok—likely with Russian connivance—appears to be behind the decision. There is some evidence that hundreds of thousands of “fake” TikTok accounts were activated during the campaign, although how this changed many voters’ minds is not all clear.

Days later, the EU has now jumped into the fray, with its executive directing EU regulators to assess “if TikTok's advertising policies and the systems it uses to recommend content to users are in breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA), which is aimed at preventing the spread of disinformation and halting illegal activities online.”

EU president Ursula von der Leyen told the BBC that “whenever we suspect such interference, especially during elections, we must act swiftly and firmly. … It should be crystal clear that in the EU, all online platforms including TikTok must be held accountable.”

The cancellation of the Romanian election leaves many of its countrymen even more suspicious of the court’s true motives, and whether its supposed impartiality had been compromised by political intimidation. It left Romanians uncertain as to when—or if—their votes will ever be counted in a future election.

It also casts clouds over the immediate future of strong Romanian support for military aid to Ukraine—which Georgescu has opposed—and indeed, on Romania’s future in NATO, which Iohannis had once hoped to lead after stepping down as president.

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The uncertain situation in Romania follows a narrow reelection win by neighboring Moldova’s president Maia Sandu, who defeated a pro-Russian former prosecutor, Alexandr Stoianoglo, 55 percent to 45 percent, in her November runoff. Sandu also cited Russian interference in the election, which was decided in the end by hundreds of thousands of expatriate votes cast abroad, 70 percent of whom preferred Sandu.

Moldovan President Maia Sandu won a second five-year term in November. Public domain photo

Indeed, Stoianoglo received about 51 percent of all votes cast within Moldova—including the Russian-dominated separatist region of Transnistria—almost double the amount he had received in the October first round, which Sandu had led in a very large field of candidates with 42 percent. Whether Stoianoglo’s much stronger showing in the runoff was fueled purely by Russian vote-buying is debatable, but seems credible—especially after Moldovans voted separately in October to enshrine future EU membership in their constitution, something Russia vehemently opposes.

Moldova itself is a fairly small country, with just 2.5 million resident citizens. The relatively large number of Moldovan citizens living abroad—estimated at more than 1.2 million expatriates—were eligible to vote in some 231 polling stations in 37 countries, including most of Europe, the United States, Canada, and even two stations in Moscow, Russia. That their votes were tabulated so quickly speaks well of the efficiency with which modern Moldova conducts its elections.

Romania, its cultural and geographic neighbor, is far larger, with about 20 million current residents. For its election, Romania opened 950 polling stations around the world for the estimated 8-10 million Romanians in the worldwide diaspora, most of them in Europe, although no figures are available for how many Romanians took advantage of the opportunity.

Expatriates, of course, are relatively safe from the effects of the social media blitzkrieg cited in either Moldova or Romania.

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At any rate, neither nation wasted its polling station efforts in the tiny South American nation of Suriname, where neither country has yet established an independent embassy, and where I served for two years in 1989-1990. Fewer than 30 nations have seen fit to open an embassy in Paramaribo, for several reasons. The sheer expense of operating an embassy is one, especially in a country which has relatively little significance in the world at large, and offers little strategic importance or trade value, even to its neighbors. In other words, why bother?

Moldova, with only a handful of embassies outside Europe, has shown little interest in opening an embassy anywhere in South America, having established full bilateral relations with Suriname only in 2013. Moldovan interests in Suriname and most South American countries are managed through its embassies in the United States and Canada. As for Romania, its embassy in Brasilia easily handles diplomatic relations with Suriname and its western neighbor, Guyana.

Few Romanians (and no Moldovans) appear to live in Suriname, population 600,000, and only a handful visit annually—less than 2,000 in 2017, the last year for which figures are available. Just getting a visa to Suriname is complicated enough—it is relatively expensive, and most European visitors must apply in person to Surinamese embassies in Europe (Brussels or Amsterdam, each 1,000 miles from Bucharest), and cannot travel there (legally) without a passport visa or electronic visa (e-visa).

Citizens of 28 countries are eligible at present to enter Suriname without a visa; most are in South America and the Caribbean, although the Netherlands and a number of Asian nations, including Japan, Singapore, and South Korea are also among those given permission. (Countries not included on the Surinamese free-entry list—including Romania, China, and Russia, for example—are among those eligible to apply for and purchase e-visas online.)

Most other travelers, including U.S. citizens, must purchase multiple-entry visas—again, either in person or as an e-visa—for a fee, which seems geared primarily toward generating hard currency for the cash-strapped nation. [See a list of the 28 countries and requirements to enter Suriname at https://www.surinameembassy.org/visa_extension.shtml ]

How many Romanians might make the trek to Suriname in any given year—or indeed, why they might even want to—is not clear. The troubled former Dutch colony is not known as a popular tourist destination, its economy is a basket case, and its handful of casinos are hardly worth the trouble and expense of getting there from Europe. Other Caribbean nations have far better beaches, less dangerous casinos (not operated by unscrupulous Chinese gangsters), and far more amenities.

Of course, Romanians may actually be traveling to French Guiana next door, to the east—an overseas French department to which they need no visa, as EU members, just a yellow-fever vaccination—where they can spend euros and sneak across the rather porous border into Suriname. A long shot, but entirely conceivable.

But however they are getting in, a recent warning issued by Surinamese police to its citizens—sent out by e-mail, and widely reposted (in Dutch) on Facebook—appears to highlight a new, almost ingenious activity supposedly being carried out by Romanian criminals, with or without tourist visas. “The Romanian mafia is taking over in Paramaribo,” I learned recently from one insider, speaking only half in jest.

According to the police warning, free key rings, stickers, and pendants for cars “are currently being distributed at petrol stations,” but contain a special tracking chip. “This is the work of Romanians, a new form of crime. Criminals follow you home from the gas station, and can thus find out when you are not at home,” according to the Facebook posting.

A set of Surinamese flag key chains, made in China, available on Amazon website. Tracking chip optional …

Burglars may then return to clean out the unsuspecting gasoline patrons’ houses when their chip-laden key rings show they are away from home, and flee the scene when the key ring warns they are coming back.

If the reports are true, why they are being blamed on Romanians, of all people, is not at all clear. The language barrier makes this unlikely at best. Those responsible for this new crime wave could just as easily be home-grown, or even Brazilians, who at least would have far less trouble entering or leaving the country. Perhaps the generally inept Surinamese police have actually solved one of these alleged key-ring home burglaries—although that in itself is highly unlikely.

Meanwhile, home burglaries are on the rise in Suriname, along with most other crimes. The UK government and others warn travelers about recent “incidents of burglary, armed robbery and violent crime in the capital, Paramaribo, and surrounding areas. Pickpocketing and robbery are increasingly common in the major business and shopping areas.”

In a country racked by soaring inflation, a worthless currency, dubious politics, and suspicion of the rest of the world—fears created and reinforced during the long-running soap opera of former dictator and ex-president Desi Bouterse, now in hiding from a well-deserved prison term for orchestrating a series of murders when he first came to power 40 years ago—it is small wonder, perhaps, that a country thousands of miles away gets all the blame.

Much easier than taking a long, hard look at the real problems at home, and how to solve them—which require a level of introspection Surinamers are notoriously unable to achieve.

Next time: Rest in peace, Union Institute & University