When comparing to the disaster in France or Belgium, the outcome of Romanian sovereignist populism is modest. Eight seats and a combined 20 percent for AUR + SOS are not the end of the world, it could have been worse. Even the winter polls showed a much worse scenario.
But the picture is more complex beyond the percentages.
1. According to an analysis by The Telegraph, sovereignism recorded the highest leap in Romania, 16%, compared to previous elections.
2. Sunday's result makes populist sovereignism the second political force in the country in the European Parliament elections, closer in nature to parliamentary and presidential elections than local ones.
The result thus validates AUR and SOS as the main opposition forces, while the pro-European Opposition is collapsing. SOS obtained as many MEPs as USR, and AUR twice as many as the United Right Alliance.
In local elections, AUR's weak point, the party's result is not brilliant, but incomparably better than that of the United Right Alliance.
3. This result does not validate somewhat articulate politicians, such as European sovereignists, but political caricatures, much inferior to other Romanian experiments in the same area, for example, Corneliu Vadim Tudor.
I am not very afraid of how Diana Șoșoacă will behave in the European Parliament, simply because she will not be allowed to behave as she does here. The rules are clear, and if she tries to create a scene as she does in the Romanian Senate, she will be swiftly and uninhibitedly dealt with.
But I have already seen in Ms. Șoșoacă a good ability to adapt to the environment. In Italy, she did not defy the carabinieri. There is a big difference between being crazy and acting crazy because you are allowed to.
It scares me that these people received more votes than decent political forces, of course, with their strengths and weaknesses.
For Diana Șoșoacă, this result is exactly the breath of fresh air she needed during the bad period she went through, overshadowed by local elections and, especially, by the tremors of the marital scandal that became a party issue. She is validated and ready to plunge into the upcoming electoral season.
Similarly, AUR, which performed below expectations, is the third political force in Romania after PSD and PNL. But somehow, it is in second place. They obtained some mayors, councilors, thus establishing a territorial base.
4. The furious vote did not occur at the anticipated potential due to/ because of the association with local elections, which shifted the focus and attention to specific issues, fragmented by local interests.
But in the fall and then in winter, the themes of the presidential and then parliamentary elections favor the release of the anger now mitigated by local elections and the beginning of summer.
I have said before, Romania's luck is that such a dangerous trend fell into the hands of political clowns, but it is worrying that even so, in combination with local elections, they were voted for by nearly 2 million people, and from the first electoral test, they emerge strengthened and practically the only opposition standing.
Of course, it is easy to insult and marginalize the voters of these two formations. You can be surprised or even revolted that they delegated their power to formations that have no credible program, that only deliver scandal and hysteria.
But that will not change their choice; on the contrary, it will embolden it. The real solution is for the rest of the political class to try to understand the anger, frustration, fear, perhaps even despair that drives these people towards such toxic options and to find communication and resolution solutions.
If they are not understood, but only blamed and marginalized, it is possible for them to become more numerous.