Twenty percent of Romanians live outside the country – a total of 5 million people – and in the first round of the presidential election that concludes on Sunday, they voted overwhelmingly for far-right…

Twenty percent of Romanians live outside the country – a total of 5 million people

In the first round of the election on 4 May, the Romanian far right obtained even higher results outside its borders than it did within – Simion came first with more than 40 per cent of the vote in Romania, but took more than 60 per cent of the vote in the diaspora.

  • HotznplotznEnglish
    3·
    3 days ago

    The diaspora vote is particularly favourable to the far right in the countries where Romanian expatriates are most numerous, namely in Western Europe …

    “Their vote is a protest vote against the traditional parties, which are seen as corrupt,” explained Antonela Cappelle-Pogacean, a researcher at Sciences-Po and a specialist in Romania.

    “But it’s also a vote with socio-economic motivations, since in these Western societies, members of the Romanian diaspora are to be found among the working classes. Finally, it’s also a vote about identity, since the integration of these people is sometimes difficult, and they are in a way torn between their rebuilt lives and their desire to return to Romania.”

    East-west split

    In Eastern European countries such as Poland, Moldova and Hungary, however, the pro-European candidate Nicusor Dan came first.

    This result can be explained by Simion’s hostile stance on sending military aid to Ukraine, and by the pro-Russian stance of Calin Georgescu, the candidate who topped the poll in November and whose legacy the leader of the Alliance for Romanian Unity claims to inherit.

    The diaspora vote is therefore directly linked to the economic and geopolitical context of the countries where Romanian expatriates live.