Former Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta joined the race for May’s presidential election re-run on Wednesday as the far-right worked to ensure they had a candidate in the contest after the ban on pro-Russian Călin Georgescu threw the vote wide open.
Romania is set to repeat its two-round presidential election on May 4 and 18 after the Constitutional Court voided the initial ballot in December following accusations of Russian meddling in Georgescu’s favor, denied by Moscow and the Romanian candidate.
Canceling the ballot placed the NATO state at the center of a dispute between Europe and the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump over free speech and suppression of political opponents.
With the far-right scrambling before Saturday’s deadline to replace Georgescu, who had been leading the opinion polls, Ponta, a former Social Democrat Party leader who has moved to the right in the past year, could pick up votes from across the political spectrum.
“Victor Ponta will steal some votes from the left and the ultranationalists,” Sergiu Mișcoiu, a political science professor at Babeș-Bolyai University, told Reuters.
“He aims to prove to U.S. conservative lobbyists that they have an alternative to Georgescu, one more experienced and reasonable.”
Romania’s president has a semi-executive role which includes chairing the council that decides on military aid and defense spending.
They can also veto EU votes that require unanimity, making the role important as the bloc is trying to increase defense spending and develop its own Ukraine strategy.
Meanwhile, the far-right is maneuvering to ensure that at least one of their number would be put to the voters. Georgescu has stopped short of endorsing a replacement.
“Once our candidacies are definitively accepted, one of us will withdraw,” Gavrilă said in the statement with Simion after meeting Georgescu. “We must give all chances to this [nationalist] movement.” All candidacies need to be validated by the election bureau.
Second round
Simion is under investigation for inciting violence after Georgescu was barred. He says the investigation is an attempt to associate him with a violent protest he did not attend.
Neither Simion nor Gavrilă have made overtly pro-Russian statements, unlike Georgescu. But all three far-right parties in parliament voted against a law that enables Romania to shoot down drones breaching its airspace - something which has happened frequently as Russia attacks Ukraine across the river Danube from Romania.
Analysts say that if Simion’s bid is accepted, he has a good chance of reaching the second round. There, he could face Nicușor Dan, the centrist mayor of the capital city Bucharest, who had been showing as Georgescu’s main contender in some of the polls.
