by Frankly I’m shocked. Romanians used their collective brainpower to not elect George Simion, a thug, a bully, an ex-football hooligan, an isolationist (which you can’t sensibly be in Romania), a Trump fan and a Russian sympathiser. Instead they gave a five-year presidential term to Nicușor Dan, mayor of Bucharest, who is pro-Europe and pro-brain. Dan got 53.6%. At the beginning the result was in doubt. At 9pm a pair of exit polls showed Dan in the 54-55% range, but the diaspora (who made up about 14% of the overall vote and for some bizarre reason favoured Simion) weren’t included in those estimates. The polls only had to be off by three points or so and Simion could have won. Both Dan and Simion claimed victory initially, but Dan and his supporters were clearly in a chirpier mood while Simion was dripping with aggression – there was a man in a red MAGA hat alongside him which told you all you needed to know. (Simion had called his opponent “autistic” and had refused to debate with him.) The results came through impressively quickly and by 10:30 there was no realistic path to victory for Simion. With the diaspora factored in, the exit polls were pretty much bang on. (By the way, of the 301 New Zealand-based Romanians who voted, only 37 cast their votes for Simion.)
It was interesting watching the coverage with Mum and Dad. I was able to translate the speeches and commentary. The election is hugely consequential for Romania and for Europe, even if it’s had limited press around the world. It really looked like Romania would be the latest domino to fall. After all, Simion won the first round by a huge margin; Dan only just made it into the final round. Yesterday I was encouraged by high turnout in obvious Dan-friendly areas like Cluj and lower numbers where Simion would be strongest – turnout figures were reported throughout the day – but didn’t dare to believe. I’d been there before with Brexit, Trump and heaven knows what else. But it was clear that there was a heavy mobilisation of people in the second round against Simion. Two million more people turned out compared to the first round – turnout was almost 65% which in Romania is very high. Dan will now set about forming a government made up of pro-European parties.
In some ways I get the appeal of someone like Simion. Capitalism and globalisation are no longer working. Societies are breaking down. The invasion of tech is becoming more sinister and taking away people’s jobs. The environment is deteriorating as I type. Something needs to change. But certainly not in the simplistic, belligerent way Simion wanted. For the moment we’ve dodged a bullet. I should be able to live and work in Romania in peace, to see more of the country, to at least try and improve my command of the language. I still have a future here, and that’s a blessed relief.
Mum and Dad have gone for a walk into town. That’s a blessed relief too after Mum’s endless cleaning and tidying and rearranging. Earlier this morning Dad helped me move a disintegrating chaise longue into the car; I then took it to the tip. That was a good job done.
Yesterday I took Mum and Dad to Scârț where we met Dorothy. After our coffee we looked at all the weird and wonderful Ceaușescu-era artifacts downstairs. I was on edge all day yesterday; mostly I was dreading the results of the election. When we got back I had a two-hour maths lesson. After that we watched the men’s tennis final from Rome (on clay courts next to the Tiber River) between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner. I hadn’t thought of watching tennis for some time, but Mum still follows it. Sinner had two set points in a long opening set, but Alcaraz won it on a tie-break before racing through the second 6-1. Dad was surprised they didn’t play best of five sets. They once did play five sets in these big finals; Rome had two absolute classics in 2005 and 2006.
