Romanian elections megathread

A small message in [RO] beforehand for those who can understand this:

Mergeți bă să votați, bă! Să scăpăm de marionetele PSD și de borfași!

With that out of the way, [EN] following suite, as I am also posting this on @politics :

Today it is a very important day for my country, as we’re currently having the 1st round of elections. Why this might be important not just for Romanians, and most importantly, who is running, you can find in this Politico article.

There are many other candidates, but those who are likely to pass the threshold and reach the runoff are just Marcel Ciolacu (PSD - Social Democrat but rather conservative), George Simion (AUR - far right, conservative) and Elena Lasconi (USR - Liberal/Neoliberal/Right but reformist). Currently, Ciolacu is the frontrunner, but while this might sound good on paper, in reality, his party is notorious for supporting cases of high corruption, and many of its members moved to AUR once it became more mainstream. They’re still against the idea of civil partnerships, which can also benefit same-sex couples, and they have been so most of the time. To get an idea, you can also check the takeaways after the presidential debate organized last week at Digi24. Small correction: Ciolacu and Ciucă did not skip the debate because of meeting with high officials, they just went to Antena 3, which is pretty much politically affiliated with PSD (something like Fox News, also spreading fake news about the opposition) and wanted to avoid difficult questions (Ciucă’s party PNL (Liberals), also gave the current president, which has a very low approval rating due to his expensive plane trips, his uninvolvement in the events and the unhindered rise in power of the intelligence, similar to the Russian ones).

So yeah, although Lasconi previously voted in a referendum for amending the constitution to state that a marriage can only happen between a man and a woman, as well as making some remarks that got her accused of misogyny, she is the least bad candidate on the table. Pro-West, pro-EU, pro-NATO, supporting Ukraine the most and pro-civil partnerships for same-sex couples.

Here in Bucharest where I am, there’s an extra thing that we need to vote; currently the city is divided into 6 sectors, which are pretty much treated like separate cities, which makes it hard for its development. In addition, the City Hall of the entire Bucharest has a budget lower than that of all the sectors combined. Almost half of that budget goes to public transport, central heating and other current spendings, while the Sector Halls are doing almost all the investments. We have two issues that we’re being asked about: whether to have the City Hall split the entire budget of Bucharest, and whether the mayor of Bucharest should be the one to approve the new constructions throughout the city (currently he can only approve them only in the central area).

As of writing, the referendum has just passed the threshold for validation (30%), while the presence for the presidential elections is now at 45,98%.

I will try to update this thread if new fraud attempts or any other important events.

So far, the following things happened:

• The police contacted multiple people who posted online about the elections the day before. The persons were supporting USR, but were not party members, so legally they were not forbidden to campaign any candidate. Those who were campaigning for other parties were not contacted, though. AUR leader showed everyone how to cast a valid vote with an actual ballot, and pointing at his name. Far-right SOS leader Diana Șoșoacă filmed herself voting inside the voting booth, which is illegal. A singer posted a song about PNL right in the day of the election.
• AUR leader George Simion accused the government of massively fraud at the elections in diaspora. USR also reported some irregularities, but only at a polling station in Moldova.
• A vlogger was picked up and fined by the Romanian Gendarmerie for booing the current president at the polling station where he would vote.
• County Election Office in Argeș reported former justice minister Alina Gorghiu to the police for alleged campaigning during the election day.
• Sorin Ioniță, the leader of the Expert Forum NGO, called the local PSD organizations in Buzău to stop mobilizing the people to vote for Simion, said his organization will fill a complaint.

Update 19:45 local time: Political sources have declared for Euronews Romania that a surprise candidate might go in the runoff on the second place. While it doesn’t mention the candidate, I think it is highly likely that the candidate is either Lasconi or Călin Georgescu, an independent and former AUR member. While AUR and it’s leader, George Simion toned down their extremist speech as of late, during the elections, Călin Georgescu adopts a more extremist position, being a fan of the fascist dictator Ion Antonescu. Recently, there has been a lot of fuss about him because of a massive support campaign on social media (most likely through bots or paid comments), especially on Tik Tok and YouTube. I personally hope the former candidate is the surprise.

Update 20:49 local time: The first exit-poll has been published. The votes go as following:

1. Marcel Ciolacu – 26%
2. Elena Lasconi – 18%
3. George Simion – 16%
4. Nicolae Ciucă – 13%
5. Călin Georgescu – 13%
6. Mircea Geoană - 5%
7. Kelemen Hunor – 4%
8. Cristian Diaconescu – 2%
9. Others: 3%

Previously, Dan Barna, former USR leader until this year, accused the PSD leadership of ordering a massive vote for AUR in the towns it controls.

According to HotNews, the representatives of AUR at the polling stations have received instructions in advance to report various irregularities, even if they are true or not, and ask for a recount.

Meanwhile, a well-known defendant accused of pimping displayed his endorsement.

Update 21:30 local time: Avangarde-Cira and CURS exit-polls published. Ciolacu is on the 1st place, followed by Lasconi. The surprise, indeed, is Georgescu. Live results can be seen here, as the votes are being counted.

Update 23:20 local time: It’s a huge twist of the situation. Călin Georgescu is almost overtaking the previous favourite, Marcel Ciolacu, with 22.12% of the votes, while Ciolacu has 22.39%. Seems like buying comments and content on TikTok is paying off.

Update 23:40 local time: Călin Georgescu has just become front-runner of these elections. More votes than Ciolacu and PSD. I don’t know if this is a scheme of PSD and the intelligence services to get Ciolacu in a clear advantage against his opponent (whoever that might be), but things look pretty gloomy out there.

Update Monday 25/11 10:13 in the morning local time: Good morning fedi, good morning everyone here and beyond, except Călin Georgescu. As it stands now in an unexpected twist of events, Elena Lasconi surpassed Marcel Ciolacu as well. Looks like we will have a runoff between her and Călin Georgescu. There are still 0.05% of the votes to be counted, but as we currently are, there is a difference of 1461 votes that separate her from Ciolacu. In diaspora, Ciolacu, Ciucă and other mainstream politicians barely made it in the first 10 places, as Georgescu and Lasconi have a massive vote difference between them and the next candidates. Here’s how the world map looks in these elections and here’s how the Europe map. As I’m almost reaching the character no of this Masto server, I will leave some takeaways from this in the comments below.

Update 16:31 local time: All the votes have been counted. Here are the results. Călin Georgescu is a clear winner of this 1st round, with 2.120.404 votes, or 22,94 % of the votes - having 347.901 more votes than Elena Lasconi, with 1.772.503 votes, or 19,18 %. She only has 2.742 more votes than the previous second contender, Marcel Ciolacu, with 1.769.761 (or 19,15 %). Marcel Ciolacu and Nicolae Ciucă also announced they would quit from their postion as heads of their parties. The next round in december 8 will be really interesting.