Romanian presidential candidate Calin Georgescu has millions of likes on TikTok and hundreds of thousands of followers. He ran a successful social media campaign to emerge victorious in the first round of the country’s presidential elections.
Romania is reeling from the unexpected rise of far-right extremist Calin Georgescu who won Sunday’s first round of the presidential elections as an independent.
His rise went unnoticed by the political system – with his victory representing the first time a fringe candidate won a national election solely through a sophisticated media campaign.
Georgescu rode a wave of public discontentment with the political establishment combined with an intensive, years-long social media assault filled with anti-Western rhetoric.
“He is selling a utopian story. He’s selling a dream for conservative Romanians as an opposite to the classical politicians that are very transactional,” said the founder of the Romanian Ethical Media Alliance Dragos Stanca.
“We have now a TikTok messiah or something like that. Very successful. And we are ot sure if he will be able to win in the second round.”
Georgescu captured the protest vote against the mainstream political parties and their economic performance – using a well-oiled social media machine propagating extreme nationalist and pro-Russian messages to devout followers.
Rather than relying on bots or algorithms, these highly loyal followers propagated Georgescu’s message, says co-president of the Reper party Dragos Paslaru.
“Calin Georgescu’s pseudo-Messianic speech with which he presented himself won him followers rather than, as you can find in other parts of the world, committed supporters,” he added.
Bordering Ukraine and on NATO’s Eastern flank, Georgescu’s statements have all the hallmarks of a hybrid war against the West – following the same narrative which can be seen in other European countries.
We need Russia to stop attacks, Zelenskyy says, backing calls for truce in air, at seaUkrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has responded to overnight attacks
CNN — European leaders have vowed to rearm the continent at historic emergency talks h
Ukraine's energy and gas infrastructure came "under massive missile and drone shelling" by Russia on Friday, a Ukrainian minister said."The energy and gas infra
With a mixture of regret, laced with incredulity, European leaders gathered in Brussels to marshal their forces for a power struggle not with Russia, but with t