(Bloomberg) -- A Romanian far-right candidate who shocked the political establishment last year by winning the first round of the presidential election remains the frontrunner as authorities aim to repeat the contest in May.
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Calin Georgescu, a fringe independent who has denounced NATO and praised Vladimir Putin, had 38% support among a field of six candidates, according to a survey carried out by pollster Avangarde. Still, a runoff with Crin Antonescu, a former National Liberal Party leader backed by Romania’s ruling factions, would be a tight race, with Georgescu only slightly ahead, the poll showed.
The survey makes clear Georgescu’s resilience among Romanian voters, many frustrated with the political establishment, even after his victory prompted accusations from security officials about Russian meddling. It also showed broad disaffection over the ruling by the nation’s top court to nullify the election, which was rescheduled for later this year. Nearly half of respondents called it the wrong decision.
At stake is the future of a European Union and NATO member state that shares a 600-kilometer (375-mile) border with Ukraine and hosts thousands of troops from the military alliance. A nation that’s been a reliable transatlantic partner since the fall of communism, Romania’s turmoil may mark a turning point as far-right forces make steady gains.
The crisis has led to a selloff in Romanian bonds, with the yield on the local 10-year note trading above 8%, close to a two-year high hit last week.
Georgescu, a 62-year-old agricultural engineer, was catapulted from obscurity to win the Nov. 24 first-round vote with help from a social media campaign, including high-quality TikTok videos, for which he declared he’d received no funding.
A top-level security panel in Bucharest said the effort was abetted by outside interference, a determination cited by the Constitutional Court in its Dec. 6 decision to void the election. The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday rejected Georgescu’s challenge to the cancellation.
‘Globalist System’
Since then, the candidate has taken to far-right media outlets to denounce the decision as a “coup d’etat.” In a Jan. 17 podcast interview with right-wing US provocateur Alex Jones, Georgescu said the court ruling was “ordered from abroad and implemented by the globalist system.”