The possibility of George Simion reaching the Cotroceni Palace should be considered. AUR leader has the chance to enter the presidential final in first place, and depending on the number of votes obtained and the two-week campaign, he may also win the position of head of state.
Currently, there are projections and sociological analyses describing such a situation.
This time, Simion’s victory in the elections will not be perceived by society as a surprise as it was in the case of Călin Georgescu.
The AUR leader is a well-known politician, a member of Parliament, with a high visibility obtained through intense activity on social networks.
His arrival at the Cotroceni Palace will have major consequences, and the Romania we know now will change rapidly, but I do not believe it will exit the European Union or NATO.
The current parliamentary majority will not last long. PSD will quickly hold a congress that will dismiss Marcel Ciolacu, and the new party president will be a populist who will ally with AUR, forming a new parliamentary majority.
There will be a new government, and PSD will not leave the Victoria Palace as most voters, including Simion's supporters critical of the social democrats, desire.
Romania, in political quarantine
To better understand the atmosphere and brutality of the political changes in the country, with Simion's arrival at the Cotroceni Palace, a good example is what happened in the U.S. in the first 100 days of the Trump administration.
For a long time, the public space will be dominated by all kinds of revenge, taking over agencies and institutions, distributing new privileges, putting pressure on political leaders outside the government circle, on non-governmental organizations, and on the media representatives.
It is very likely that the governments of the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine will lift the entry bans for the new president, but the relations with Chisinau and Kiev will cool and become strange due to accusations that Romania has a president accused of meetings with FSB agents, being seen as a destabilizing factor in two neighboring countries.
Also, Romania will enter quarantine, being seen as a threat to the European Union and NATO.
A similar situation occurred in the period 1990-1996, after the Iliescu regime violently suppressed the protest in University Square and annihilated the political opposition.
Instability, the new normal
The public hostility towards PSD, the political mediocrity of those in AUR, and their extremism will quickly undermine popular support for George Simion.
Reality will quickly replace the fantasies on social networks, and many Romanians will find themselves in an internationally isolated country, with an economy that at best will stagnate, with the departure of investors, unemployment, and the possibility that the new government will quickly find itself unable to pay pensions and public sector salaries.
The rapid and brutal change of the landscape that most had grown accustomed to will lead to strikes, protests, and tensions in the streets.
A PSD-AUR parliamentary majority will, in my opinion, be unstable due to major internal conflicts within the two political formations, as well as pressure from the population.
PSD does not have the presidency, which turns it, willingly or not, into a secondary player, and a conflict between Simion and the social-democratic prime minister will be inevitable.
On the other hand, a possible political split within PSD could lead to the president's suspension, so George Simion, especially if his popularity plummets due to skeletons in the closet and the socio-economic crisis, will be a weak leader, unable to control the dynamics of political forces in Parliament.
Confrontation between pro-Westerns and extremists
The major conflict that will plague Romanian society will be between pro-Western forces and the nationalistic-legionary-pro-Russian extremism that has expanded in recent years, favored by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Simion's problem will be that the pro-Western forces in Romania are more numerous, more politically active, and have more to lose with him as president.
Huge tensions existed between the two major political groups in the '90s when there was a major imbalance between pro-Westerns and communist nostalgics, who over the years and a generation became today's populists, favoring the latter. What will happen now, when the first category dominates society, and a large part of Simion's votes come from people who supported him as a form of protest against the current political class?
In my opinion, Romania will resist an extremist adventure, but it will not be easy, and the first and most affected will be exactly those who fell into the trap of populism promoted by AUR, SOS, and POT.
Those who will vote for Simion on May 4 and 18 must be aware that the policy of the winner affects everyone, both positively and negatively, although voters' choices are different.
Although the decision to support one candidate or another is made differently, and people have different expectations from the winners, the negative impact of a president will be felt by all, regardless of who they voted for.
Simion will not appoint Călin Georgescu as Prime Minister
There are commentators who say that we must experience evil to heal from it, but I do not agree with such an approach because the suffering, loss of human lives, catastrophes, and violence caused by political evil are terrible, and if hell can be avoided, then rational individuals, conscious voters, those who have not succumbed to rage, must do everything possible to prevent it.
The situations described above may occur if George Simion wins the elections, and the statements are based on the effects of events witnessed in the recent history of Romania, on monitoring what has happened and is happening in the U.S., on the impact of populist parties that have come to power in countries like Austria or Italy in the last two decades.
Also, with a certain degree of certainty, I can say that in the event George Simion wins the presidential elections, Călin Georgescu will not become prime minister, and the annulled elections will not be repeated, despite the promises made by the AUR candidate.