The presidential elections in Romania are scheduled to take place on November 24 2024. If no candidate receives an absolute majority of the vote, a second round will be held on December 8 2024. However, Diana Iovanovici-Şoşoacă, leader of the far-right SOS Romania party and a member of the European Parliament, will not be running as a candidate due to a ruling by the Constitutional Court of Romania. On Saturday, October 5, the Court removed the far-right politician from the list of presidential candidates without explaining its decision. The Romanian MEP sparked strong reactions from fellow MEPs in September when she accused the EU of genocide due to the COVID-19 vaccines.
In June, two Romanian irredentist parties gained seats in the European Parliament for the first time. The Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), a member of the ECR, won 6 seats with 14.9% of the vote, while SOS Romania secured two seats with 5% of the vote. AUR advocates for the union of Romania with Moldova and has internal neo-fascist and extremist factions. SOS Romania is a breakaway faction of AUR. These two parties are the primary sources of pro-Russia, anti-EU, and anti-Ukraine propaganda in Romania. Despite AUR’s inclusion in the ECR, the extremist Europe of Sovereign Nations group rejected SOS Romania due to opposition from its founding member, the Our Homeland Movement (MH) party. Şoşoacă’s party also promotes conspiracy theories, denies the COVID pandemic, spreads hate speech against minorities, mainly targeting the LGBT community, and supports a fundamentalist version of Orthodox Christianity.
The Court’s decision
Politicians from different political parties have expressed concerns about the recent ruling, calling it a threat to democratic values and suggesting possible interference. The nine-member politically appointed Court is expected to provide a detailed explanation today for its decision to ban Diana Șoșoăca from running in the presidential elections. Analysts in Bucharest suggest that the reasoning behind the decision is uncertain due to the limited majority vote of 5 to 2.
Şoşoacă accuses Jews and the EU of the ruling
SOS Romania said, “The Romanian Stalinist system is against Șoșoăca”.
The far-right MEP told her followers on Facebook that the ruling “proves the Americans, Jews, and the European Union have plotted to rig the Romanian election before it has begun.”
According to SOS Romania’s social media, mass protests emerged against the ruling.
“Judges from the CCR began to run away from fear of the huge wave of protests, being frightened by the mobilisation of the SOS Party Romania and the millions of supporters of my presidential candidacy. Thank you to all the patriotic Romanians! Together, we will defeat the dictatorship!” Șoșoăca posted.
Silenced during European Parliament’s debate
During a September debate in the European Parliament about monkeypox, Şoşoacă accused the EU of wanting to start a new pandemic. She also once again denied the existence of COVID-19 and levelled several accusations against the EU institutions. As a result, MEPs demanded that her microphone be cut off, which eventually occurred after she accused the EU of mass genocide and the destruction of Christianity.
“It seems that the pandemic of COVID that never existed will not end. Now you are starting another pandemic, and you are going to Africa, where you have no competence,” the far-right MEP declared.
“I was one of the fiercest voices against the violation of civil rights and liberties, both as a lawyer in civic life and as a Romanian senator in the Romanian Parliament, where I even stopped your green passport that was reminiscent of Nazism because it is a dictatorship”.
Şoşoacă accused the EU authorities of preventing Christians from expressing their right to religion.
“You tried to kill as many old people as possible; Italy was an experiment in which you killed as many old people as you could; in Romania, 65,000 Romanians were thrown into black plastic bags and shouted the truth from the pit. They want justice. You tried to stop us from entering the churches; you stopped us on Easter from entering all the churches; we opposed and fought with the gendarmes to enter”.
“God is not vaccinated,” stated Soșoacă. “Stop this dictatorship!”
What Șoșoăca’s exclusion could mean for the elections?
The president of Romania mainly has ceremonial duties. However, he has significant powers, such as nominating the prime minister and overseeing foreign policy, which is crucial for Romania’s support of Ukraine.
The exclusion of Diana Şoşoacă from the presidential race could impact the elections, as she has significant voter support. Around 500,000 voters supported the SOS Romania party in the recent European elections, and polls indicate 7% support for Şoşoacă. There are questions about what these voters will do.
Recent polls show that the AUR party is gaining influence. While the Socialist Party (PSD) expects that AUR may not be able to attract Şoşoacă’s votes due to the deep antagonism between the two parties, there are not many differences between AUR and SOS Romania. Polls also show that AUR’s leader, George Simion, is the second choice for the SOS Romania electorate. If this is the case, AUR could succeed in gaining Şoşoacă’s voters, increasing its chance to pass to the second round of the presidential elections. In this scenario, the main beneficiary would be the PSD leader and presidential candidate Marcel Ciolacu. However, some analysts suggest that Şoşoacă’s votes will be dispersed and will not significantly influence the outcome of the elections.
Romania will hold parliamentary elections on December 1, a month after its Presidential ones, testing the historical coalition government between Socialists and Conservatives and facing the attempt of the pro-Russian far-right parties to increase their votes. The results of the general elections and the referendum for EU membership in Moldova, which was a non-EU member, could impact the vote of Romanians in both presidential and parliamentary elections.
