After Calin Georgescu took the “gold” from George Simion in the first round of presidential elections, the AUR (GOLD) leader is once again in a fragile position as the new presidential elections start.
The Simion-Georgescu couple formed as a result of Georgescu’s personal stubbornness to run for office, even though the risk that the Constitutional Court wouldn’t allow him to do became obvious. It was Moscow’s need to see Georgescu insisting on this path right until the end, to complicate the electoral process to the maximum and to cause friction in Romanian society to the critical point of destabilizing the country (for both objectives, the Russians needed Călin Georgescu to be in the game for as long as possible).
Once Călin Georgescu was formally out of the game, the emergency solution agreed by the sovereignists-Putinists, with the Kremlin watching over them, was the bizarre double candidacy of George Simion and Anamaria Gavrilă (in a scenario in which one of them would later withdraw).
The basis for this emergency solution was that one of them would remain in the race if the other one was banned from standing for the presidency. It can’t be ruled out that Moscow wants to keep Calin Georgescu in an advantageous position to act as a broker.
At this moment, Georgescu is playing the role of broker both through the influence he can exert on Anamaria Gavrilă and through the pressure he can exert on George Simion, through Anamaria Gavrilă.
Călin Georgescu has never been alone in this entire electoral and intelligence game with the future of Romania – as shown by revelations regarding Moscow’s involvement om favor of Georgescu – it follows that Calin Georgescu has the most advantageous position of broker, as he has the strategic support from the East (Russia).
The questions that arise are the following: Who and especially under what conditions will one of the two retire?
George Simion certainly has no rational reason not to fight to the end to remain in the race. Because in his case, the noose is tightening, and unlike Anamaria Gavrilă, Simion has the most to lose from abandoning the race.
If Simion, in the end, were not to run, then, AUR, Romania’s largest sovereignist-Putinist party, would find itself in the paradoxical and thankless position of not having its own candidate. George Simion, until he becomes the president of the country, is first and foremost the president of the AUR. The absence of an AUR candidate would automatically be blamed on head of the party. Already his position has been criticized within AUR that he put the party in a fragile situation.
In addition to pressures from his own party, George Simion exposed himself, by agreeing to the tandem with Anamaria Gavrilă, to potential blackmail from outside the party, from Anamaria Gavrilă, Călin Georgescu, and Moscow.
Simion is not only a bit part actor in this story, but as the head of AUR, the potential blackmail he exposed himself with from the Gavrilă-Georgescu-Putin trio, also means exposing AUR to blackmail.
All AUR members should therefore be aware of the following: Simion decide not to run (an extremely bad scenario for Simion and the party) or he could continue with the candidacy (but this will imply a heavy price for both Simion and AUR). Because Anamaria Gavrilă has no reason to retire for the sake of it, just as neither Georgescu nor Moscow have no reason to accept such a thing without extracting dividends from Simion and AUR.
Theoretically, it is possible that none of them will withdraw from the race, but arithmetically and politically speaking, this would be a puzzling scenario for Moscow and for the entire sovereignist-Putinist camp, too good to be true, seen from the perspective of Romania’s pro-Western and pro-democracy camp.
Anamaria Gavrilă, unlike George Simion, is in a position to play her card with relaxation and dictating the terms. She has too little to lose and a lot to gain!
It can be seen from her statements so far that she is very aware of this. And in the end, why not? When you have a George Simion next to you, why wouldn’t you try to take advantage of such a favorable context to inflate your personal profile and increase your small party’s profile?
From the end of November 2024, George Simion is going from bad to worse. Since the end of November, Russia has been looking for solutions that will help it at least hope that it could finally do well in the final outcome of Romania’s presidential election.
The squeezing of George Simion to the last drop, through this scenario of the Simion-Gavrila tandem is therefore a step taken by Moscow via Georgescu and via Gavrilă. It is the second step that the Russians are taking after the first step, of betting on Calin Georgescu, which was blocked in extremis by courageous decisions taken by Bucharest.
Finally, one last aspect worth taking into account:
- In the case in which he remains in the presidential race, only a miracle could see George Simion becoming the president of Romania.
- As miracles are extremely rare or never happen at all in reality, which is why we call them miracles, we are not wrong in our thinking at this stage if we start from the premise that George Simion will not be elected president even if he is the AUR-POT-Georgescu-Putin candidate.
- As for Simion’s enemies in his own party, there is no virtue in coming second
- And if he does not run, then things will be even clearer, he will be marginalized even before May 4 (even if the actual event would occur after May 18, for reasons strictly related to the sparing of appearances).
I wouldn’t want to be in George Simion’s shoes at the moment!
