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00:00Romania's pro-European Prime Minister Marcel Cilacu said this Monday he won't challenge
00:07the narrow result that showed him eliminated from the country's presidential election,
00:12announcing his resignation as party leader.
00:15Cilacu came third, with just over 19 percent in Sunday's election.
00:19The pro-Russian candidate, Kalin Djorgescu, topped in the poll at nearly 23 percent, and
00:24from the center-right, Elena Lascuni, second in just over 19 percent.
00:29Let's get the analysis.
00:30We're joined by Onana Popescu.
00:32She is the director of the Global Focus Center, which is a think tank in Bucharest.
00:37So, Onana, thank you very much for being with us.
00:40It's a pleasure to see you.
00:42How do you interpret the results?
00:44Well, I think it's a massive protest vote on the part of the population to a political
00:51class that they've been disillusioned with for a long time.
00:55So I think what we're seeing is an anti-establishment wave sweeping through the main parties.
01:01And also, I think we can add to that the fact that we've been having this grand coalition
01:07between the two main centrist parties, the Social Democrats and the Liberals.
01:12So there's been very little differentiation, so that people felt they were underrepresented
01:19in terms of having agency on the government agenda.
01:24And so they turned to the fringes.
01:27So Onana, this reflects the will of the people.
01:31What's the Russian influence?
01:33Georgescu denies that any has taken place.
01:36How do you interpret things?
01:38Well, that's a very good question.
01:41And it's still a it's still a work in progress because nothing can explain in sociological
01:46terms the fact that just two weeks ago, he was somewhere around one percent, then five
01:51percent, then a maximum of eight, 10 percent.
01:54That's where the opinion polls were measuring him, far from the 22 percent he eventually
02:01came to get. So this could be TikTok.
02:04And in itself, this is a new era that we're entering where you can actually be the
02:11underdog, just come out of the blue, use one social media network to campaign, the most
02:18untransparent one, and almost become president.
02:23But on top of that, it doesn't look like this like this was organic.
02:27And there are lots of questions as to who funded this, who masterminded this.
02:33And it's a modus operandi that we've been seeing in Moldova.
02:36We've been seeing it in Georgia, in Bulgaria, in Slovakia, everywhere in the region.
02:41And it's the Russian modus operandi.
02:43And since he's an explicit Russian sympathiser, there are lots of question marks to be
02:51investigated in the coming days and weeks.
02:53Indeed, we heard him earlier saying that he's not, as you've just described him, and I'm
02:57not saying that you're wrong, but I'm just trying to balance it and sort of obviously
03:01give his side of things.
03:02He says that he represents Romania.
03:04He's only interested in Romania and that's it.
03:06And there's no influence from outside.
03:07That's what he says. He's a man without a party, isn't he?
03:11He's got no party, no structure behind him.
03:12So I think what you're saying kind of points to a certain amount of support from
03:17somewhere else.
03:19Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, he has backtracked on some of his previous statements.
03:25He's a friend of Dugin's.
03:28He expressed his admiration for Vladimir Putin and for Russia as a model.
03:34But then since that doesn't usually play out well with the Romanian electorate, he has
03:39walked back some of those statements in the meantime.
03:42But at this point, we don't even know where his campaign headquarters are, if any.
03:48We don't know of any volunteers.
03:50We don't know where his finances come from.
03:54We know nothing.
03:55Even today, his statement was released on YouTube.
03:59So he stays very much away from open confrontation.
04:04So nobody's been able to even ask him these questions.
04:08Nathan, speaking to you, and thank you for filling us in on the finer detail of this
04:12result, which, as you say, seems to come out of nowhere.
04:15But as always, when you look between the lines and study behind the scenes, you see
04:19certain patterns developing.
04:21Onana Popescu of the Global Focus Centre, a think tank based in Bucharest.
04:25Thank you very much for joining us.
04:27We await the second.
04:28Thank you again.
04:29We await the second round of the Romanian election on December the 8th, with Karolina
04:34Georgiescu currently leading.
04:37He will be up against Elena Lascone of the centre-right.
04:40We'll be watching for developments, too.
04:42And once again, thanks to Onana Popescu.