Romania’s far-right party, AUR, is growing in popularity and could enter a government coalition next year following parliamentary elections.
European Union member Romania will hold local, presidential, parliamentary and European elections next year – making 2024 a crucial time for the country and for Europe, as the far right could continue to gain strength. ground.
“These elections are important for the political situation in Romania as well as for the whole European Union, where the far right has gained popularity in many member states such as Sweden, Slovakia and now the Netherlands “, Fernando Casal Bertoa, associate professor of comparative politics at the University of Nottingham, told Euronews.
Next year’s elections could determine “a completely new direction for the country”he adds.
A recent survey by polling firm INSCOP published in early November showed that the country’s ruling coalition government – which includes the left-wing Social Democrats (PSD) and the center-right Liberals (PNL) – would fail to succeed not to obtain an absolute majority in the parliamentary elections of 2024.
This year, the coalition government has sought to bring the country’s public finances under control, a situation that has allowed the far right to gain ground in Romania.
According to the opinion poll – commissioned by the Romanian news site, “News.ro”, and carried out among a sample of 1,100 people between October 23 and November 2 – 29.5% of Romanians would vote for the PSD of the Prime Minister,**Marcel Ciolacu,**and 18.4% for the Liberals in next year’s legislative elections.
According to the INSCOP poll, the ultra-nationalist opposition party, Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), – an abbreviation of “gold” in Romanian – would obtain 20.2% of voters’ support, which would put it ahead of the liberals.
What is AUR and what does it represent?
In December 2020, the little-known party AUR, which had been created in the autumn of the previous year, emerged from the shadows to obtain almost 9% of the votes in Romania’s parliamentary elections. Since then, the party has continued to gain support in recent opinion polls.
The party’s rise is due in part to massive support from the Romanian diaspora which, according to Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, professor of comparative public policy at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome, “has a large percentage of low-skilled and marginal people who, in fact, only work seasonally in Europe”.
“I called them, to the great indignation of some, a “lumpen-diaspora”, to paraphrase Karl Marx”explains Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, in reference to a term which, in Marxist contexts, indicates a population that is not interested in revolutionary progress.
“They needed a radical alternative to the existing political system and they found it in the AUR”she adds.
The pandemic has also “helped a lot“the rise of the AUR, in the same way that it helped the Alternative for Germany (AfD) to expand its base, says Alina Mungiu-Pippidi. “They were the anti-vaccine party and in Romania, with the complicity of the Orthodox church, half of the population was not vaccinated. This was the main wind in their sails”she further specifies.
“Like in the Netherlands, people are really unhappy with the way the country is governed”assures Euronews, Claudiu Tufis, associate professor of political science at the University of Bucharest, to explain the popularity of the far-right party.
“There isn’t much representation in the Romanian political system, with pretty much the same coalition running the country continuously for almost 10 years now. They’re looking for someone who speaks their own language.”he adds.
The AUR declares to represent “family, nation, faith and freedom”but Alina Mungiu-Pippidi indicates, to Euronews, that he represents, in fact, “anti-science, Christian fundamentalism and sovereignism”.
The party also positioned itself as an anti-corruption party at a time when the country was facing major corruption scandals – a move that was adopted by other populist parties in Europe, such as the 5 Star Movement in Italy.
AUR is also known for opposing same-sex marriage and has called for the unification of the Republic of Moldova with Romania. In 2018, the founder of the AUR – former journalist Claudiu Tarziu – called for a referendum to ban same-sex marriage, which failed.
Could the AUR be part of a new coalition government?
According to Fernando Casal Bertoa, whether the AUR could one day be part of a coalition government with the PSD would depend on the election results. “The Liberals might want to govern with the far-right party, but not under it. So they might bring it in if it has greater support than the AUR, but not the other way around. It’s difficult predictable”he continues.
ADVERTISEMENT“But everything is possible”he confides. “We have seen in Europe a trend towards the normalization of the far right and the far left, and the elections in the Netherlands are a clear example of this”.
“I expected the AUR to win a little more than in the last elections”confides Claudiu Tufis. “But they will probably be in a position that will not allow them to form a coalition, political parties argue that the AUR should be kept at arm’s length”he adds.
“It is probably more likely that the Social Democrats and Liberals will continue the same coalition they have formed over the last ten years,” he declares.
With the level of support currently estimated in the polls, the AUR could claim between 8 and 11 MEPs, after the European elections in June 2024. The party is then likely to ally with Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, on the subject which AUR President George Simion said was a “political model for us”.
Is the EU keeping an eye on Romania?
Fernando Casal Bertoa thinks that the EU is closely following what is happening in Romania, as well as in other countries such as Spain and the Netherlands, “and the great thing is that the EU has mechanisms to intervene if these far-right parties threaten democracy or the rule of law.”
ADVERTISEMENT“The problem”he adds, “is that it has no way of stopping the rise of the extreme right.”
Claudiu Tufis agrees, saying that even if the AUR wins a big victory in the European elections, “they will be controlled within the European Parliament”.
Alina Mungiu-Pippidi thinks the EU has no reason to worry about the AUR. “Romania is well controlled by a left-right coalition solidly supported by its far too powerful secret services and military establishment”she says.
“The church may flirt with the AUR, but it always sides with the powers that be. The AUR will be co-opted, like all the radicals before them, with government benefits, although in the meantime it can offer some colorful moments in the European Parliament”she adds.
