Political Unrest Rocks NATO Ally Romania

From the The Morning Dispatch on The Dispatch

Happy Wednesday! And congratulations to Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson who is set to fulfill her oft-stated, lifelong dream of becoming the “first Black, female Supreme Court justice to appear on a Broadway stage” on Saturday when she delivers a one-night-only performance in the musical comedy & Juliet on the Great White Way.

Break a leg, Justice!

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• Syrian rebels on Tuesday named Mohammed al-Bashir as interim prime minister in the country’s transitional government. Bashir previously administered an opposition-held area before the rebel offensive that began late last month and toppled President Bashar al-Assad over the weekend. On Monday, meanwhile, the Justice Department unsealed an indictment against two high-ranking officials in the Assad regime, accusing them of torturing detainees, including U.S. citizens. Both men, who remain at large, worked for Syrian Air Force Intelligence and oversaw operations at the Mezzeh Prison near Damascus.

• Taiwan’s defense ministry on Monday warned of Chinese military vessels amassing off the island’s coast in what appear to be significant Chinese naval exercises following Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s unofficial stops in Hawaii and Guam during his tour of the South Pacific earlier this month. Taiwanese officials said Tuesday morning they had spotted dozens of ships and nearly 50 planes across a wider area than is typical of military exercises. Chinese officials have not announced any planned drills.

• The U.S. Missile Defense Agency, part of the Defense Department, intercepted an air-launched intermediate-range ballistic missile in a military exercise near Guam on Tuesday, the first time the island—a U.S. territory—has successfully conducted such a test. “Within the context of homeland defense, a top priority for the Department of Defense, Guam is also a strategic location for sustaining and maintaining United States military presence, deterring adversaries, responding to crises, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” the agency said in a statement.

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu testified Tuesday in his corruption trial for the first time, four years into the trial and eight years after investigators first opened an inquiry into allegations as part of three separate cases that he accepted bribes—including cigars and champagne—from businessmen in exchange for preferential treatment and favor. Netanyahu called the accusations “absurd,” and testified that he hated champagne and rarely had time to finish cigars. Netanyahu is the first sitting Israeli prime minister to testify in court as a defendant.

• Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, underwent emergency brain surgery on Tuesday to treat a brain bleed sustained after a fall in October. The 79-year-old president is set to return to the capital, Brasilía, next week, and his vice president, Geraldo Alckmin, has taken over some of his duties in the meantime.

• New York prosecutors late on Monday charged Luigi Mangione with one count of second-degree murder related to the shooting death last week of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, whom prosecutors say Mangione gunned down in Midtown Manhattan. Lawyers for Mangione, who was taken into custody in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, are challenging his extradition to New York to face the murder charges, as well as several other felonies related to his fake identification and weapons possession.

A Big Year for Global Democracy Ends in Chaos 

An independent candidate who surged from virtual anonymity to the head of the polls just days before the election. Explosive allegations of Russian interference by intelligence agencies. Claims that a presidential campaign was funded not by money but was rather “in God’s hands.” A constitutional court that affirmed the result before overturning it just days later, after all the votes were counted, and after a run-off had already begun.

In a year of strange electoral contests around the globe, Romania’s recent presidential election might just take the cake.

Last week, the Romanian Constitutional Court annulled the results of the contest’s first round of voting, because of suspected campaign finance violations by far-right candidate Călin Georgescu, who won a plurality of votes.

The decision forces an election do-over sometime in the spring of 2025 and throws the country’s politics into chaos. The shock victory of an anti-Western, pro-Russian dark-horse candidate—and accompanying, if so far largely unsupported, allegations of interference by Moscow—could signal profound changes in the key NATO partner’s continued support for the alliance.

Like many countries this year, Romania is facing a wave of voter discontent with its most established political parties—the center-left Social Democrats and the center-right National Liberal Party. Anger over inflation and perceptions of corruption sparked revolts from the right and the center going into this year’s presidential election.

As the campaign began, it seemed like, as in much of Europe, right-wing populists would have all the insurgent momentum. The Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), a right-wing nationalist party that seeks the unification of the Romanian diaspora and defines itself around the “four pillars” of “faith, liberty, family, and fatherland,” led among parties opposed to the ruling Social Democrats in early polling.

But a centrist, reformist alliance of upstart parties, the Save Romania Union (USR), led by small-town mayor and former TV journalist Elena Lasconi, gained ground as the November 24 election day approached. The race was shaping up to be a four-way showdown between the two establishment parties and the two rebels—but roughly two weeks before the election, Georgescu burst onto the scene.

For observers of Romanian politics, election day was a shock. Of the party-affiliated candidates, Lasconi won the most votes with just over 19 percent. But Georgescu, who has no party, emerged as the top vote-getter, at a hair below 23 percent.

And it was particularly shocking considering the political newcomer didn’t mount much of a campaign, instead communicating with potential voters primarily through videos on TikTok.

In the final two weeks before the election, Georgescu’s account became one of the most popular in Romania, propelled by what analysts estimated to be 25,000 allied accounts. Videos of Georgescu riding horses, practicing judo, and expressing his love for the Romanian Orthodox Church projected an image of Georgescu as a strong leader who would restore traditional values.

Georgescu was a relative nonentity before the presidential election, from which the top two candidates would emerge to compete in a run-off. A former ministry of the environment official, representative to the U.N.’s Environment Program, and think-tanker with a Ph.D. in soil science, Georgescu has never held elected office.

The man isn’t a total political neophyte, however. In 2020 and 2021, the AUR put him forward as its prime ministerial candidate. But Georgescu and the party parted ways in 2022 during factional infighting, apparently because he was too friendly to Russia—and 20th-century Romanian fascists.

In 2022, he went on national TV and praised Corneliu Zelea Codreanu—the leader of the violently antisemitic and pro-Nazi Iron Guard movement in the 1920s and 30s—as someone who “fought for the morality of the human being.” Georgescu also described Romanian dictator and Nazi collaborator Ion Antonescu, executed in 1946 for war crimes, as a “martyr.”

Of concern for the NATO alliance, Georgescu has also praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “leader among leaders” and has denied that NATO brings security benefits to his country. “The shield is part of a confrontational policy,” Georgescu said in 2022, about the missile shield protecting a NATO base in the Romanian town of Deveselu. “It’s not about peace, as those kissing the ring at various doors would have you believe.” He decried the 1989 revolution overthrowing communism as a Western plot to enslave Romania and steal its resources. Shortly after winning the first round, he said he would end all support for Ukraine if elected.

Georgescu, a man without a party, also ran on the end of Romania’s multiparty system. “There will be no more political parties in this country. None. No political party will be left, because the ancestors are alive, they are not dead. They are dead, these people who walk the streets and who do not understand anything,” he declared in April.

And the scenario Georgescu described isn’t totally outside the realm of the possible, given the way the Romanian constitution is set up. “Constitutionally, he has ways in which he could, if he becomes president, cancel out democracy,” said Iulia Joja, a senior fellow and director of the Black Sea program at the Middle East Institute. In one scenario, for example, pro-Western parties in the parliament could attempt to form a governing coalition and propose a prime minister. Georgescu would have the power to reject their nominee twice and then dissolve parliament.

However, Georgescu’s victory was almost immediately overshadowed by shocking accusations from the Romanian intelligence services. Last week, outgoing President Klaus Iohannis declassified intelligence documents that argued that Georgescu’s rapid ascent was driven by Russian misinformation campaigns. “Intelligence reports revealed that this candidate’s campaign was supported by a foreign state with interests contrary to Romania’s,” Iohannis declared on national TV. “These are serious issues.”

The accusations came at a time when many states in Eastern Europe are especially aware of Russian interference: Last month, Russia conducted extensive cyber campaigns promoting the pro-Russian candidate in Moldova’s presidential election, and put its vaunted misinformation operation at the service of the pro-Russian Georgian Dream party in Georgia’s November election.

Georgescu’s camp derided the allegations as “fake news.” And he may have a point, according to  Joja. “We have very, very little to go on,” as far as direct proof of effective Russian interference for Georgescu, she said. “What we have are strategic narrative overlaps, but we don’t have much quantifiable, measurable proof of Russian election interference.”

“While the Atlantic Council’s own analysis of TikTok and Telegram found significant amounts of coordination to promote Georgescu to the widest online audience possible, much of this activity was completely legal under Romania’s election laws,” said Mark Scott, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

In other words, Georgescu’s victory may have been convenient for Russia, but that doesn’t mean the Kremlin caused it. But Russian interference, while stoking massive controversy inside Romania, is not the reason that the constitutional court annulled the election result.

The court’s decision was based on their conclusion that the integrity of the election had been compromised when Georgescu insisted that he had not spent any money on his campaign.

This was not, in fact, the case: Social media influencers were most likely paid under the table to promote his TikTok account. “Claims that online influencers were paid to champion the candidate’s causes—and did not disclose those payments under campaign financing rules—do fall into the category of potential illegal behavior,” said Scott.

The court’s decision to annul the first round, which reversed a ruling from only four days earlier and came after tens of thousands of Romanians living abroad had already voted in the second round, caused an immediate uproar. “Today, the Romanian state has trampled on democracy,” Georgescu declared last week. “Democracy is under attack. … On this day, the corrupt system made a pact with the devil. I have only one pact—with the Romanian people and God.”

Lasconi was also vociferously opposed to the ruling. “Today is the moment when the Romanian state trampled over democracy,” she said. “God, the Romanian people, the truth and the law will prevail and will punish those who are guilty of destroying our democracy.”

The U.S. State Department issued a statement that seemed to hint at sympathy with the court’s decision. “The United States stands with the Romanian people as they face an unprecedented situation regarding the integrity of their elections,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said. “We note the Romanian Constitutional Court’s decision today with respect to Romania’s presidential elections. The United States reaffirms our confidence in Romania’s democratic institutions and processes, including investigations into foreign malign influence.”

What will happen in an electoral rerun is an open question. The court directed the government to set a new date for the election and to create a revised electoral calendar, potentially extending Iohannis’ term, set to end on December 21. If the Romanian parliamentary elections held on December 1 (and not annulled by the court) are anything to go by, the far right will continue to be a potent force. The AUR won the second-most votes—beyond the leftist Social Democrats—doubling their vote total from 9 percent in the last election to over 18 percent earlier this month. Combined with some number of Georgescu’s voters, that’s a sizable populist voting bloc.

Whenever the elections are held, the U.S. and its allies will be watching the results closely. “Geopolitically and economically, Romania is really key,” Joja told TMD. Romania is a NATO ally and the largest country on the alliance’s “Eastern flank” after Poland. It has the longest border with Ukraine of any European country, and all Ukrainian grain, a critical part of its economy, must transit through Romania, or be under its protection in the Black Sea. The Mihail Kogălniceanu airbase near Bucharest also hosts a U.S. Army garrison, a critical hub for NATO’s rapid-response deployments. A new anti-NATO, anti-Western president at the helm of such a critical country could rock the alliance.

President Iohannis—who was this year a contender to lead the NATO alliance as secretary-general—took to television to try to project calm. “I say this for the EU: Romania is and remains a safe, solid, pro-European country. I say this for NATO: Romania remains a safe, solid ally,” he said. “I think it’s very important that we all know: Romania is not in difficulty.”

Perhaps he doth protest too much.

Worth Your Time

• Big Data is taking over the world, but “little data” is taking over our lives, Nicholas Carr argued for Hedgehog Review. “We don’t give much notice to what might be called little data—all those fleeting, discrete bits of information that swarm around us like gnats on a humid summer evening,” he wrote. “But the view of reality that little data give us is narrow and distorted. The image in the mirror has low resolution. It obscures more than it reveals. Data can show us only what can be made explicit. Anything that can’t be reduced to the zeroes and ones that run through computers gets pruned away. What we don’t see when we see the world as information are qualities of being—ambiguity, contingency, mystery, beauty—that demand perceptual and emotional depth and the full engagement of the senses and the imagination.”

• Did weight loss drugs cause the recent dip in U.S. obesity figures? Maybe not, explains Joshua Cohen for Undark magazine. “It is premature to declare that GLP-1s have caused overall declining obesity rates in the U.S.,” he wrote. “There are a number of ways to interpret the CDC data, and not all of them suggest that obesity rates have actually fallen. Further, recent evidence indicates that GLP-1s might not be as effective for weight loss as initially thought. And there are reasons to question the comparison to cigarette sales. Taken together, all of this suggests that we may need to wait to understand how this new class of drugs affects weight loss at the population level.”

Presented Without Comment

The Hill: [Rep.] Susan Wild Absent From Ethics Committee Meeting After Gaetz Leaks to Press

Rep. Susan Wild (Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Ethics Committee, was absent from the panel’s meeting last week after being traced as the source of leaks to the press regarding the investigation into former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), sources told The Hill.

It remains unclear if Wild voluntarily skipped the Thursday gathering or was asked not to attend, what information she leaked and to whom, and how the panel tracked her back as being the leaker. Two sources said Wild ultimately acknowledged to the panel that she had leaked information.

Also Presented Without Comment

The Guardian: [Former Rep.] Matt Gaetz Gets Prime-Time Talkshow on Hard-Right Outlet OANN

Also Also Presented Without Comment

NBC News: Trump Mocks Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as the ‘Governor’ of the ‘Great State of Canada’

In the Zeitgeist

After almost four months of fierce competition, the Dispatch fantasy football season is coming to an end. Our fearless leader, Steve Hayes, now tops the standings after trudging all the way from 11th in the league in Week 1. Mary, Declan, and Peter fill out the other three playoff slots with a TMD showdown set for this week. Who do you have in the title game?

Toeing the Company Line

• In the newsletters: Nick Catoggio examined (🔒) what the reactions to Daniel Penny and Luigi Mangione say about populism.

• On the podcasts: Jonah Goldberg is joined by Keith Whittington to discuss impeachment powers on The Remnant.

• On the site: David Drucker explores how Trump might handle the planned sale of U.S. Steel to Japanese-owned Nippon Steel, Michael Warren reports on who Mitch McConnell will be in the Senate when he’s no longer majority leader, Charles Hilu writes that GOP senators seem unconcerned with Tulsi Gabbard’s views on Syria, Kevin Williamson takes a look at the country club radical who allegedly murdered Brian Thompson, and Jonah Goldberg digs into Amnesty International, Israel, and the definition of genocide.

Let Us Know

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