The presidential elections in Romania were a fertile ground for testing the newest methods and means of disinformation, for exploiting the most classic of methods and means of this nature, perhaps even for experiments with new prototypes.
The presidential elections in Romania in 2024-2025 will go down in history for the force with which Russia penetrated and perverted the public debate and the electoral process, for the systematic aspect of this maneuver, for the length of the operations over time, for the extent of the funding dedicated to the entire offensive (a magnitude that we will probably never be able to quantify precisely, but which will be able to be as correctly approximated at some point as possible).
The presidential elections also marked a supreme premiere for Romania: the team of the leader in the White House and the team of the counterpart in the Kremlin aligned their support for the pro-Russian and far-right candidate. Such an alignment would have been impossible to imagine by Donald Trump’s predecessors, but it was certainly imagined by dictator Vladimir Putin.
The presidential elections in Romania were also an excellent litmus test for what we can also call Romania’s “enemy from within”: pro-Russian phalanxes in civic society, in the church area, in the political arena, business and in the Mafia.
In the six months from November to May, more visible than ever, the Kremlin and its secret services spread over the virtual and physical territory of our country.
This exposure at an extraordinary level of pro-Russian vectors in Romania will have to be used appropriately by the competent authorities in Bucharest, as well as by our allies. And it will have to be fully understood by all Romanian citizens.
Finally, the presidential elections in Romania have raised two other major themes that need to be dealt with urgency:
- Educational and cultural precariousness, which has reached a level that can endanger national security and even the sovereignty of the state.
- The proliferation of conspiracy, anti-Semitic, fascist and communist-nostalgic ecosystems in the online environment, but with immediate and profound implications in concrete daily life, has also reached a level capable of threatening the constitutional order and the foundations of democracy, the rule of law, the foundations of strategic partnerships.
The annulled presidential elections in 2024 and the rerun in 2025 are probably the elections with the widest and deepest pool of lessons received in the last 35 years by authorities, media and civic organizations, ordinary citizens.
They caught up with us and took revenge on us badly done reforms, postponed reforms, reforms never considered.
With an attitude of “this is good enough” has just found out that yes, “this is good enough”, but it works only up to a point. And from there on, everything simply stops, and then it starts to go crazy.
Calin Georgescu, George Simion, Putin’s Russia and the Trump administration did not invent the problems they exploited to create fault lines and polarization in Romania. They simply reviewed them, studied them from all angles and introduced the necessary tools to crack the entire societal and state machinery. They almost succeeded!
Romanians, even if they seem strongly divided today according to how they voted, in reality aren’t divided by irreconcilable problems. Rather, they have a huge vulnerability when subjected to an extremely stressful test.
For this, the delay in applying reforms is to blame. But in particular, this means the abandonment of school and culture, the ignorance of the inequities produced by the dynamics of the economy, the reign of counter-selection in state institutions and agencies, the approach of the diaspora by the pro-Western parties invariably as an electoral milking cow.
For Nicușor Dan’s victory to be truly a victory, it will have to impose itself beyond the ballot box. This means that the success of this tenacious candidate will have to be perceived (after this hot evening and after a few other probably heated days) as a victory not of Nicușor Dan, but of the Romanians, of Romania and of the European construction.
Probably, in the last three decades, no one deserved more than Nicușor Dan to feel the taste of this success. None of his predecessors in Cotroceni presidential Palace carried on his shoulders a greater responsibility to quickly and credibly transform himself into a president for all.
Into an empathetic president, honest and at the same time severe with his fellow citizens. Into a cynical, demanding president, but also cooperative with all political parties. Into a president who values civil society. Into a president who capitalizes on both the internal potential of his own country and the potential of its external alliances.
In order for Nicușor Dan’s victory at the polls to become a victory beyond the ballot box, it becomes imperative that people perceive in their future president what they could not, rightly, perceive in the former presidents: aversion to lies, hostility to double standards, balance, readiness for dialogue, real dialogue and, given the times, a keen sense of history.
This is not the first time that Nicușor Dan takes over an extremely difficult situation. But it is the first time even for him that he faces such a magnitude of difficulties.
Because during the campaign he did not hesitate to give as an example his experience as mayor of Bucharest – and it was very good that he did so, it was relevant in that context – I would note this time that such a mirror will have its certain limits in operation from now on.
Nicușor Dan will have to forget that he was mayor on Monday and learn to be president.
If he succeeds in this kind of transition, many of the new tasks that fall to him and that today may seem impossible or “just” overwhelming, will simply become solvable.
Romanians made a historic Revolution in December 1989, and in May 2025 I think we can speak of a Revolution of common sense.
This is also a historic moment!
