Why the Nationalist Right is on the Rise in Romania

[Your Old Comrade]

Right-wing party AUR's popularity is rising in Romania in a shift that could hurt the country's strong support for Ukraine during the war. So in this video, we'll explore who AUR are, what they stand for and how they might influence Romanian politics.

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1 - https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2023/08...
2 - https://news.yahoo.com/romania-inaugu...
3 - https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/10/27/...
4 - https://www.aktual24.ro/sondaj-insoma...
5 - https://balkaninsight.com/2023/11/15/...
6 - https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-o...
7 - https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/roman...
8 - https://www.politico.eu/article/roman...
9 - https://www.rferl.org/a/moldova-unifi...
10 - https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/20...
11 - https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1...
12 - https://www.ft.com/content/31af3e55-9...
13 - https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/intern...
14 - https://www.euronews.com/2023/11/02/i...
15 - https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/...
16 - https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-fatig...
17 - https://www.inscop.ro/noiembrie-2023-...
18 - https://emerging-europe.com/news/stab...

00:00 Introduction
01:42 Context
03:33 Rise of the AUR
06:30 How AUR Could Influence Romanian Politics
08:22 Too Long (The Newspaper)

[Cybele]

Like it was pointed in the comments on YT, there are some small errors in the video. Like saying soviet democrats, instead of social democrats (kinda funny and there’s actually a small trace of truth to that).

Well, the elections next year, are gonna be interesting.

In the last presidential elections (2019), many Romanians voted the actual president Klaus Iohannis from the National Liberal Party (PNL), by exclusion, so that his counter candidate, Viorica Dăncilă from Social (Soviet ) Democratic Party (PSD), wouldn’t win. The latter was popularly seen as not too bright, incompetent politician. Time showed that Iohannis was not that bright of a politician either. He is now interested more in his private jet travels on which he arrogantly spent an obscene amount of money from the taxpayers pockets. The costs were not transparently made public, of course. He conveniently embraced a policy of non-transparency in some decisions and actions he took, including that of giving militarily support to Ukraine.
Diaspora especially, voted against PSD in 2019 presidential elections, because they associated this party with the past (PSD included members of FSN party, like Iliescu which were Communist party members and activists), corruption, and saw this as an opportunity to change the future “in better”. Fast forward to 2021: the apparent rivals PNL & PSD ended up creating the current coalition, because they couldn’t let the country “fall into political instability”. So, many of the voters who thought there’s gonna be a separation between these two parties, became disillusioned for the umpteenth time with our political class.
In this context of general dissatisfaction with the political class, I believe people are glad to vote for anyone who seems like an opposition of the current establishment.

There were rumors three months ago, that PSD and PNL are in talk for fusing together and creating the “Democratic Bloc” for the 2024 presidential, parliamentary, local and EU parliament elections, in order to “fight the dangerous rise of populism and extremist nationalism”. The name “Democratic Bloc” would be ironic because in 1944, the National Democratic Bloc (BND) was created by the Communist Party in Romania.
Again, these rumors are not confirmed by the representatives of either party. However, the possibility of an alliance is not completely excluded, if AUR and S.O.S (nationalistic parties) continue to rise in the polls.


She is not talked much about in this video, but senator Diana Șoșoacă, president of the S.O.S party, an arguably more nationalist party than AUR, could also run for presidential elections race. According to an INSCOP poll, at the moment, both her and Simion are placed among the first candidates in terms of support.
A possible alliance between AUR (George Simion) and SOS, cannot be completely excluded either.


However, the elections will be held in November 2024, so until then we will see how the things change, what alliances will appear or not, and so on.