The leader of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), George Simion, will replace Calin Georgescu as the leading far-right candidate in the May presidential elections, but the leader of the smaller Party of Young People (POT), Anamaria Gavrila, will be ready to replace Simion if the electoral authority rejects his bid, the two announced on March 12. 

However, they will have competition from other politicians seeking to win over Romania’s far-right electorate after Georgescu, who took an unexpectedly large share of the vote in the first round of the cancelled 2024 presidential election, was banned from running in the May election. 

At a joint press conference, Simion and Gavrila announced their plan to run with the support of Georgescu, who, however, didn’t attend the press conference. Simion will submit his candidacy on March 14, followed (if needed) by Gavrila on March 15.

The absence of Georgescu from the joint press conference and the insistence on the resumption of the annulled 2024 presidential elections created the impression that the two potential candidates were announcing a contingency plan sketched overnight, after mass protests against the ban on Georgescu’s candidacy — encouraged by rhetoric from the US administration — failed to happen. 

While Simion is a genuine politician with a career of activism for the unification of Romania and Moldova — apparently the reason for his entry bans for both Moldova and Ukraine — Gavrila’s credentials are more obscure. Her party performed unexpectedly well in the December general elections, taking 5% of the vote, which made POT the sole party with fewer candidates than MP seats awarded. This may be the result of various scenarios, ranging from what Georgescu described as “the awakening in consciousness” of the electorate, to intricate manipulations by the intelligence services. Her lack of political record, business connections with top officials from the ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the random collection of parliamentary candidates brought by her party to the parliament can more or less explain the outstanding success of Gavrila, once a member of Simion’s AUR party.

The two main far-right candidates will have competition; other candidates are competing for the Romanian electorate disappointed by the broad ruling coalition of mainstream parties. They are particularly seeking to capitalise on the far-right rhetoric successfully used by Georgescu (until he was banned precisely for his rhetoric).

Former prime minister Victor Ponta has already filed his candidacy, Georgescu’s adviser Anton Pisaroglu will follow, and even the vocal far-right MEP Diana Sosoaca, who was banned from running in the presidential election last autumn, has announced her intention to stand. The ruling coalition’s candidate, Crin Antonescu, has also included in his rhetoric some sovereignist nuances, hoping to broaden his electoral base.

But the electorate with far-right preferences may be smaller than Georgescu and his followers have claimed (and possibly genuinely expected) and far less sensitive to the messages from Georgescu’s replacements. The rallies called by both Georgescu and Simion failed to generate massive street protests.

Ponta – until recently an adviser to Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu – submitted his presidential candidacy on March 12 with a rhetoric similar to that of the far-right parties: sovereignism and support for/from US President Donald Trump (Ponta met Donald Trump Jr. on March 11 in Belgrade). His electoral support, measured by polls and under the most educated guesses, is modest at best, though – or at least much smaller compared to his expectations.

The senior ruling PSD stripped Ponta of his membership the day he submitted his presidential candidacy, but this didn’t put an end (rather the opposite) to speculation about Ponta having a mission from the PSD to capture both the party’s electorate unhappy with the official candidate Antonescu and as much of the far-right electorate as possible.

Both Simion and Ponta face obstacles in winning over the electorate: they cannot be as radical as Georgescu or they risk being banned as well, and secondly Georgescu can not explicitly support either without risking invalidating their candidacy.

Political consultant Pisaroglu, who assisted Georgescu but also worked for former PSD leader and prime minister Viorica Dancila, Simion and Bucharest mayor Nicusor Dan, announced his candidacy in the presidential elections after Georgescu's candidacy was rejected. Pisaroglu claims that he is not Georgescu's replacement, because "Georgescu is irreplaceable”. On an ambiguous note, he promised to organise free elections once he gets elected. However, without an apparatus the size of AUR's, Pisaroglu is unlikely to collect the 200,000 necessary signatures needed for a presidential candidacy.

Sosoaca, leader of the far-right SOS Romania party, also announced plans to run after she was banned last autumn. However, she is most likely to get banned again, as her rhetoric has since become even more radical. 

Sosoaca claimed that, after consultations with her party’s experts (Sosoaca herself is a lawyer), “they can not ban me twice for the same reason” – just like a person can not be judged twice for the same deeds.  

Among the moderate opposition candidates, Dan has already announced his candidacy and the leader of the reformist Union Save Romania (USR), Elena Lasconi, has similar plans. While Dan has the advantage of seniority (he is a co-founder, although no longer a member, of USR) and he is better placed in the polls, Lasconi has highlighted that she was second-placed after Georgescu in the first round of last autumn’s elections.

The two could end up splitting the moderate opposition electorate, which would open the door for a second round between Antonescu and one of the nationalist candidates.