Calin Georgescu, the pro-Russian far-right independent candidate who scored a shock victory in the first round of Romania's presidential election, has denied that he wants the country out of NATO and the European Union.
Georgescu, who garnered nearly 23 percent of the vote in the November 24 poll, will face off against center-right Elena Lasconi, a staunch Euro-Atlanticist, in the December 8 runoff after both pushed ahead of favorite leftist Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu.
Without the backing of a party, Georgescu's campaign relied heavily on social media platform TikTok, where his account had 1.6 million likes and where he posted videos of himself attending church, doing judo, running on a track, and speaking on podcasts.
He has described NATO as "the world's weakest alliance" and the alliance's ballistic missile-defense shield in Deveselu, southern Romania, as a "shame of diplomacy," claiming the military alliance would not defend any of its members in case of a Russian attack.
Instead, he recommended "Russian wisdom" as Romania's best path forward and launched a TikTok campaign calling for an end to Romanian aid for Ukraine. Under incumbent Klaus Iohannis, Romania has been one of Kyiv's staunchest allies.
But facing a public backlash as hundreds of mostly young people took to the streets of Bucharest and other big Romanian cities chanting, "No Putin, no fear, Europe is our mother," and "Young people ask you not to vote for a dictator," Georgescu denied in a YouTube video on November 26 that he wanted Romania out of the Euro-Atlantic structures.
"I do not want out of NATO, I do not want out of the European Union," Georgescu said, standing side-by-side with his wife, adding, "but I do want us to stand firm, not to kneel there, not to accept everything, to do everything in our national interest."
He went on to say that he wanted peace, adding, "We cannot get into other peoples' wars for their interests that cause us prejudice," again alluding to Romania's support for Ukraine.
For the December 8 runoff, Georgescu has rallied the support of far-right pro-Russia AUR party of which he used to be a member until 2022 and whose leader, George Simion, garnered almost 14 percent in the first round, while the center-right liberals threw their weight behind Lasconi, a former TV reporter and mayor of the small southern Romanian city of Campulung Muscel.
But first, Romanians will elect a new parliament on December 1, with Ciolacu's Social Democratic Party, the centrist National Liberal Party, and Lasconi's Save Romania Union favorite to win most of the 332 seats in the lower Deputy Chamber and 137 mandates in the upper chamber, the Senate.