That's usual USR performance

What's really happening is that Georgescu took votes away from PSD

At the very least this has clearly shown that people don't want to take part in NATO's war,which is reassuring

I don't buy the "TikTok brainrot" line and there aren't enough true hitlerites to put him over Ciolacu,so obviously his message, however astroturfed it was, resonated with people

Thanks

How do I do that? I dunno how to link comments

And yes,on the 8th of December, next Sunday is parliamentary,then the one after the second round

Honestly it's anyone's guess

I can't see a world where the Americans would want him,maybe only to make Lasconi electable? But her getting into the second round was also on a razors edge,only 3000ish vote difference

One of the theories was that he was PSD's animal and that they wanted a repeat of 2000,where the Iliescu led PSD defeated the PRM (Great Romania Party), the ultranationalists of the time with Vadim Tudor at the head

Romanian elections first round final results

Georgescu: 22.94%

Lasconi: 19.18%

Ciolacu: 19.15%

Simion: 13.86%

Very,very surprising results, no one expected Georgescu to break 5%, and no one expected Ciolacu to lose to Lasconi

Now,the real interesting part begins

The two candidates are the polar opposites of one another,one is a russophile neolegionarist and the other is a Hillary Clinton style democrat with somewhat progressive social policy

Truly a fascinating election, next week I will post about the parliamentary elections that will take place then

It absolutely is the east vs west aligned showdown

Both are the opposite extreme to the other on foreign policy,which is one of the main attributes of the president

Something very entertaining

See my comments for clarification

If this guy was the PSD's beast,their plan blew up in their face

We'll see how committed the PSD is to not collaborating with this guy, the second round is in two weeks,and I honestly can't say who's gonna win

Anyway,what I'm really curious for is what party will champion this guy's cause and get a surge, because he's nominally independent,but he has to have a counterpart dominating in parliament,the guys who managed all this can't simply just have him as president,this has to be some sort of realignment attempt

I was dooming about Romanian politics being stagnant since the 90's,but this?This is the mother of all surprises for me, because I can't see why the Americans want this guy,so it has to be some other actor

If you want my pet theory,it is in another comment in this reply chain

Exactly

However no one that I knew could tell you about this guy prior to today, he apparently had a herculean botting and astroturfing campaign on social media starting just two weeks ago and now he was skyrocketed into first place (!), beyond even Ciolacu

So,I interpreted this as people not wanting war,coupled with the most glaring foreign interference aided by local elements known to man

My thoughts is that this mf was put in by someone, can't say exactly who, because me and most people I know didn't fucking know who this mf was until now

Apparently he had the mother of all botting and astroturfing campaigns on TikTok and Facebook starting just two weeks ago

The mf is an avowed antisemite, legionary scum,but from what I hear very Pro-Russia,which is the mother of all surprises for me

So, either the CIA is pulling all it's assets from Romania in some sort of mirror of the Molotov Ribbentrop pact or the FSB became the main characters for this period and got goddamn superpowers because this is absolutely incredible

People were apparently bombarded with him on social media and I think voted with him so much because they don't wanna get dragged into a NATO-Russia war,which is very understandable,but also because of the fact that the other far right pro Russian candidate, Diana Sosoaca of the SOS Party was not allowed to run by the Constitutional Court and that from further analysis,it seems AUR was more moderate in terms of its chuddery that I thought

Either way,a masterfully engineered election,I have to give it to whoever wanted this guy, along with the elements in the Romanian secret services who made this all possible

I was joking before with my friends that we'll see the second round be the return of Ceausism,"left" vs far right,as he was both,and it appears I was right, though I was blindsided by the right being not AUR,but the Russophile

It's anyone's guess who's gonna win then,but all I have to say for the moment is that Romanian politics have just become a hell of a lot more interesting

Exit polls for Romanian elections

Ciolacu-25%

Lasconi-18%

Georgescu-16%

Simion-15%

Ciuca-14%

Geoana-5%

Not counting diaspora vote

Very surprising,Trump 2016 style surge for Georgescu,the russophile reactionary,in rest the results are pretty expected

We'll have to see what comes out after the votes are counted

There is a distinct possibility of a PSD-USR runoff in the second round,and if that's the case,I'm putting my money on Ciolacu