PLOPII-SLAVITESTI, Romania -- To her fans gathered at a medieval monastery in Romania's rural south, Diana Iovanovici Sosoaca is "the mother of the nation." Wearing a traditional folk costume, her hands caked in walnut pieces and cocoa from assembling a giant funeral cake in the shape of a cross, she leads her supporters in a rally that blends political theater with religious ceremony.
"Bellow the truth, don't whisper it!" she shouts into a megaphone at the Plaviceni Monastery, which holds the remains of a celebrated 16th-century prince, Michael the Brave. The crowd responds with chants of "Diana, president!" as Orthodox priests waft incense around the cake, performing a roll call of Romanian heroes that include Nazi-allied Marshal Ion Antonescu and communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, whose execution during the 1989 revolution was, Sosoaca says, a betrayal by the Romanian people.
Sosoaca's blend of nationalism, religious symbolism, and antiestablishment rhetoric places her within the surge of far-right populism across Europe. From Italy's Giorgia Meloni to Hungary's Viktor Orban, nationalist leaders have gained unprecedented support by positioning themselves as defenders of traditional values against what they portray as corrupt elites and foreign influences.
But unlike her European counterparts, Sosoaca's path to power has been blocked, as Romania's top court barred her from running in the November 24 presidential election. (A second round will be held on December 8 if no candidate secures an absolute majority in the first round.)
The Constitutional Court ruled that her anti-Semitic and anti-Western public statements, along with proposing closer relations with Moscow, meant she was a danger to democracy and the country's position in the European Union and NATO.
Despite Sosoaca holding largely unpopular views, she has drawn sympathy even from her political opponents for the ban.
"They will make a martyr of me," she told RFE/RL in an interview under a bell tower surrounded by dozens of her supporters. "If I don't manage to get on the list or get the elections canceled, [voters] will draw a square and write Diana Iovanovici Sosoaca, president." Before she was barred from running, polls indicated she had up to 11 percent support.
The rise of populist parties in Europe and Donald Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election has given a boost to Romanian nationalists and fringe politicians who accuse mainstream political parties of squandering the nation's assets since the fall of the communist regime in 1989 and making decisions of national importance without consulting the people.
"Nobody can take away the right of the Romanians to vote for what they want," she continued, prompting cheers from the crowd. Without providing any evidence, she called the court ruling "anti-Romanian-ism" engineered by "Israel, the United States, NATO, the EU," because they are "scared of me."
Pandemic Populist
A lawyer by profession, Sosoaca shot to prominence in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic with her virulent anti-vaccine message. Her popular Facebook videos pilloried vaccinated Romanians, who she said went "like lambs to the slaughter." Her videos often showed her turning up at hospitals where she would get into contentious arguments with medical personnel.
As a result of her elevated public profile, she then won a seat for the far-right Alliance for the Unification of Romania (AUR) party in the Romanian Senate the same year.
In 2024, she gained a seat in the European Parliament, promising to summon a priest to sanctify the chamber and cleanse it of "devils," a ritual she repeated in her office when she turned 49 on November 13.
Sosoaca confirmed her reputation for theatrics in July by repeatedly heckling a colleague during a debate in the European Parliament. Waving a black garbage bag and shouting, "You kill Romanians," she then placed a dog's muzzle on her face before being escorted out of the Strasbourg chamber.
"Sosoaca makes no effort to be polite," says Cristian Parvulescu, dean of the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration in Bucharest. "She insults and attacks people...that is her appeal." In her interview with RFE/RL, Sosoaca called European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen "a criminal," the Americans "bastards," and the presidential candidates "stupid."
TikTok Star
Banned from mainstream Romanian television, she has built a significant following through social media, particularly the popular social media app TikTok. "She's popular with young people, the Romanian diaspora, and men with a low [level of] education," Parvulescu said. "She taps into people's resentment and speaks their language." Her maternal image, Parvulescu explains, resonates particularly with male voters, as demonstrated recently when she comforted a protesting shepherd in her arms.
The Constitutional Court's decision to bar her candidacy -- a five-to-two ruling that critics say was politically motivated -- has raised concerns about the democratic process in Romania. "There have been numerous 'undesirable' presidential candidates in postcommunist Romania, but it is the electorate who decides to exclude them through the ballot box," said Alexandra Iancu, a professor from the political-science faculty at the University of Bucharest.
The ruling has also drawn criticism from legal experts. Augustin Zegrean, a former Constitutional Court president, questioned its validity in an interview with RFE/RL's Romanian Service: "As long as there's no conviction for her public statements, she can't be rejected. I have the impression that they voted first to remove her, and then they wrote the ruling."
"The point isn't whether the Constitutional Court analyzed whether [Sosoaca] is a danger to democracy," Andrei-Razvan Lupu from the Public Law Department of the University of Bucharest told RFE/RL's Romanian Service, "but the fact that she couldn't defend herself, and no proof was offered by the authorities who should have been objective. Quite simply, five judges ruled that Diana Sosoaca doesn't deserve to run."
S.O.S. Romania
Critics have suggested that Sosoaca's exclusion was a maneuver to smooth the path to power of current Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, the leader of the ruling center-left Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the presidential front-runner. With Sosoaca barred from running, many of her votes would likely go to a nationalist rival, George Simion, the leader of the Alliance for the Unification of Romania (AUR) party. Four of the five judges who voted to remove Sosoaca were appointed by the PSD.
With Sosoaca out of the race, Simion, who is currently polling in second place, now has a chance of making it to the runoff. Running against Simion, Ciolacu would be seen as the respectable, pro-European option, an advantage he would not have if he met any of the other pro-European candidates in the second round.
At the Plaviceni Monastery, such political machinations are of no concern to Sosoaca's supporters. "For me, she is a Romanian and a true soul. She will take us out of the claws of those who destroyed us over the last 35 years," folk singer Gheorghe Luca said.
While Sosoaca may be down, she is certainly not out. Despite her exclusion from the presidential race, her far-right S.O.S. Romania party -- a reference to the international distress signal and a play on her name -- is expected to enter parliament for the first time in the December 1 elections. University dean Parvulescu predicts that Sosoaca's party and their nationalist bedfellow, the AUR, could end up with as much as 40 percent of the vote.
