Georgescu tries to demonstrate close ties to Donald Trump's administration
Interview on the day of the Romanian parliamentary elections on December 1, 2024 on the Bulgarian TV channel bTV on the developments in Romanian politics
bTV, 1 December 2024
On December 1, 2024, when the Romanian parliamentary elections were taking place, Vladimir Mitev was interviewed on the programme "This Sunday" on the Bulgarian national private television bTV. The hosts Beste Sabri and Mityo Marinov asked him about his expectations regarding the results of the parliamentary and presidential elections, what change in the country's foreign policy course will happen if the presidential candidate from the sovereignist camp, Calin Georgescu, becomes president, how Georgescu's success is explained, etc.
Vladimir explained that at the time of the interview there were still many unknowns about the political situation in the country, including whether the Constitutional Court would annul the first round of the presidential election, a decision that would be made on Monday. The founder of the blog "The Bridge of Friendship" also explained that for Romania the ties with the US are important and when the resident of the White House is Donald Trump, this implies an intensification of the sovereignist trend in Romania. We are currently waiting to find out whether the nominee for Health Secretary in the future Donald Trump administration, Robert Kennedy Jr, will visit Bucharest for the presentation of his book on Big Pharma in Romanian. Calin Georgescu authored the foreword of this book and will likely use the event to demonstrate alleged or real ties to the Trump administration.
Vladimir also talked about the reasons that led to the anti-establishment vote in the first round of the presidential elections in Romania, linked to the stabilocracy under the rule of the Social Democratic Party and the National Liberal Party. He also developed his thesis that, if Georgescu becomes president, he will probably bring his country closer to Hungary, but will not take it out of NATO or the EU, turning it into a new Belarus. Of course, at the time of the interviews there are still many unknowns about what lies ahead in political life in Romania.
Mityo Marinov: We will talk now to journalist Vladimir Mitev about Romania's path and what to expect now. Hello and good morning!
Vladimir Mitev: Good morning.
Beste Sabri: Good morning from me as well. Can we predict from now whether the Romanians' choice will be similar to the first round of the presidential elections? Our colleague here said that the far-right party is expected to win. What are your expectations?
Indeed, there are opinion polls that put the AUR party, which is sovereignist, first. Second place, as your colleague said, is set to be for the Social Democratic Party. And it is interesting that, literally in the last days and hours before the elections, the Social Democratic Party started to put out messages which also sound sovereigntist, with an emphasis on religion. That is to say, they used the rhetoric of the sovereigntist parties, saying that Romanians should be proud, have verticality, stand up straight to their partners and so on. This is perhaps some kind of sign that there is also a sovereigntist tendency in the Social Democratic Party and, with a certain development in the outcome of the elections, it is not impossible that there will be some kind of turn in this party towards the sovereigntist tendency, despite the fact that at the moment the interim president is a man who is very trusted in Brussels - Victor Negrescu.
Can we talk, Mr Mitev, about Romania now taking a different political path?
We will have to see what happens on the Monday after the elections, when the Constitutional Court will rule on the complaints that have emerged about the first round of the presidential elections. There are great fears among serious journalists in Romania (I can point to the journalists from G4 Media, which is a leading media outlet), that there could be a concerted constitutional coup that would create even greater tensions in society. These fears have to do with the fact that at the moment, although there are protests, they are relatively small and the degree of tension is not yet as high as it could be.
What do you mean by a constitutional coup? It sounds frightening...
It's about the fact that there are fears that the first round of the elections could be annulled, in connection with these discrepancies in the counting of some votes...
And when will that be clear?
On Monday it will be decided. But there has already been a statement to the effect that the order of the candidates does not change after the recount of the majority of the votes. So, as your colleague also mentions in his reports, we still have to see what the decision will be. For now, we have to wait for the election results.
But I think it is obvious and it is safe to assume that when Donald Trump is in the White House, in Romania, for which it is important to have good relations with the United States, there will be some kind of political formula, some kind of balance in Parliament between the different forces that suits the Trump era.
And here, perhaps, I should recall that Calin Georgescu himself is boasting these days that it is possible that Robert Kennedy Jr, who is Donald Trump's leading expert on health issues, will come to Romania to present his book on 5 December 2024. And we have to see what this event will be and whether it will not influence in some way the outcome of this struggle that is going on at the moment.
From the cover of Robert Kennedy Jr's book that is circulating on social networks, we see that Calin Georgescu is the author of the foreword to this book. That is, he still tried to capitalize on any alleged or real ties to the Trump administration.
We went into the geopolitical thread. We're sure there is one. But I just want to focus on the election. Right now in Romania, this presidential election is contested. If this had happened in Bulgaria, I am sure we would have said 'bought vote', 'bought election'. This is usually the reason why we want a cassation of the vote. However, why do the Romanians not have this doubt and do not talk about it?
In my opinion, the Romanian situation is not very different from our situation. Just like in our country, many institutions are in doubt. In this case, we are talking about the Constitutional Court. It is known that the way the Constitutional Court is formed, most of its members are linked to the Social Democratic Party, which is the party of the current Prime Minister, Marcel Ciolacu. And it is believed that he and his party have their influence in it.
And it is believed that this decision that the Constitutional Court has taken on the recount of the votes at the first round of the presidential elections and the possible decision that it may take on Monday about theri validation or annulation are, according to the interpretations of some legal experts, a form of abuse and violation of the rules. There is a view that there is no real basis for these decisions, or for the Constitutional Court to intervene in the elections at all, as there has been no report of fraud. The elections were just concluded in a normal way, without anything significant to disturb the electoral process. And the complaint that has been lodged and on which these decisions are being made did not also ask for a redrawing of the votes.
Okay. But yet we keep saying what a big surprise it is that Georgescu actually won in the first round. Tell us - you are a journalist, you directly observe the processes in Romania - why did this victory come about, what led up to it, what happened politically in Romania in recent years to bring us to this election?
Yes. I think that Georgescu's result shows that there is a strong anti-systemic vote and he has just managed to convince people that he represents that vote and, therefore, that vote has gone to him. But this is because for several years there was a great stability in Romania, in which the two big parties of the transition were very efficient in dividing up their portions related to various funds, state funds, European funds. Usually in Romania, one party is in power, the other is in opposition, and when they are in competition they take out each other's transgressions and give them media visibility. In this way, a form of control is exercised.
When the two parties ruled together, they also had great influence in the media, because they used the state subsidies for the parties to buy such influence, to support the media and to get media comfort from a number of television stations. This created a calm that was perhaps really necessary in the context of war in Ukraine, but on the other hand, corruption or lack of reform also characterised this time. And at that moment some new media played their role. In general, the fact that there is a culture of investigative media in Romania has made it possible to learn from these media about some serious sins or breaches of ethics on the part of representatives of the two ruling parties.
You do not mention Tik Tok as a social network. It has become very popular in Romania in recent days.
Yes. Everyone is talking about the fact that Georgescu's campaign in Tik Tok was successful. However, I think that these messages in Tik Tok would not have been successful if there were not also some real grounds in society for dissatisfaction and if another person or another type of leader was not sought. So I'm not inclined to attribute the result of Georgescu to Tik Tok alone.
I think the reasons are more complex and are linked to the internal balances in Romanian society.
How will the election of Georgescu affect the processes in the European Union and directly Bulgaria respectively?
Let us see who will be elected because we have a lot of unknowns at the moment. However, if Georgescu is elected, my personal expectation is that Romania will not do something really radical. He himself has already started to soften his positions.
It is unlikely to be a question of leaving the European Union or NATO, as some fear. Rather, I think he may be going in the direction of Hungary. Hungary stands within these structures and is perhaps content to have a particular voice within them.
There is something else that I think is important these days. There is an interview circulating from 2014 by Georgescu in which he talks very sensibly, very logically about how Romanian capital is in a weaker position compared to international capital inside Romania. I think this may have some significance - that the powers that back him may have an interest in changing some of the economic balances in Romania.
But this thinking has existed for a long time as a discourse and as a conversation in Romania, while the real situation is not changing. So whoever comes to power we should not be expecting something very great and very fast to happen.
We are waiting to see what will happen in the coming days. Thank you very much for this inclusion, Mr Mitev.