Presidential candidate Calin Georgescu, speaking for tabloid TV stations Realitatea and Romania TV, which are echoing his rhetoric despite repeated fines they have to pay, has continued to promote his conspiracy theories along with the broad scenario of Soros-backed "globalists" fighting against sovereignists supported by elected US president Donald Trump on the territory of Romania.

One such theory is that canceling the presidential elections in Romania is an action organized by the incumbent US president, Joe Biden, who aims to involve his country and NATO in the war against Russia in Ukraine. This would allow Biden to remain in office, Calin Georgescu claimed – echoed by Romania TV journalists reporting from Washington about the imminent support letter expected from the team of elected president Trump in favour of Georgescu.

Other disinformation messages said that the Army took the tanks on the streets and would soon incorporate all men aged 18-35 and send them to fight in Ukraine, according to messages circulated by thousands of TikTok accounts on December 8. Representatives of the Ministry of Defence released a message to deny all these rumors. 

Tabloid TV stations exposed such manipulation, but only to promote their conspiracy theories instead.

However ridiculous the TikTok rumors and Georgescu's statements may look (he is circulating most of the conspiracy theories starting with the negation of the Moon landing to the negation of COVID-19), such messages repeated again and again on various social networks have secured him a place in the runoff of the presidential elections. 

Ignored/avoided by mainstream media as irrelevant, such rhetoric was not properly prosecuted by authorities. Often contradictory or funny, sometimes of a criminal nature when promoting fascist organisations/leaders, such messages proliferated on TikTok, making Georgescu a major influencer.

But before becoming a TikTok influencer, Calin Georgescu was a member of the academic, business, and administrative elite. And this made him a special kind of TikTok influencer and eventually a presidential candidate.

Georgescu is, after all, the coordinator of the "National Sustainable Development Strategy of Romania 2013-2020-2030 (SNDD)," drafted and endorsed by the Romanian Academy and the Government of Liberal (PNL) prime minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu in 2008. 

In 2008, Georgescu was the head of the National Centre for Durable Development (CNDD), a body under the supervision of the Academy as an agency of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) that apparently ceased to exist in 2013.

The SNDD 2008 drafting group includes, among others, former head of the reformist party USR, Dan Barna, journalist Moise Guran, and chief economist of the National Bank of Romania, Valentin Lazea. Among the scientific coordinators is Mircea Malita, a mathematician, member of communist nomenklatura (disgraced in 1984), and diplomat, who was invoked by Georgescu as his mentor.

Many of those who now have nothing to say about Georgescu, including central bank governor Mugur Isarescu, Fiscal Council head Daniel Daianu, former minister and ambassador Mircea Geoana (presidential candidate in several instances as well), Emil Hurezeanu – currently Romania's ambassador to Vienna (where Georgescu spent part of his life), political analyst Cristian Parvulescu, representatives of the business circles (now deeply concerned) such as Dumitru Pogonaru and Dragos Frumosu, have all of them at a certain moment in time attended conferences or co-authored books with Calin Georgescu. Certainly, this doesn't make them accessories to Georgescu's current political adventure, but may be worth mentioning.

Florin Pogonaru, president of the Romanian Businessmen's Association, recently told RFI that when he met Georgescu, the latter was circulating rather normal ideas, but "he's an opportunist. He knows very clearly how to attract attention in various matters." 

Mircea Geoana, who, as foreign minister, hired Georgescu as a personal advisor in 2004, said that when he met Calin Georgescu "at the Club of Rome, at the National Bank of Romania," he made a good impression on him because he was "deeply pro-Western," Europa Libera Romania reported. He hired Georgescu "because he needed an environmental specialist."

And yet, in 2009, speaking at a conference organised by another Strategy drafted by Georgescu and cleared by the Romanian Academy, Geoana agreed that "unless the course of action doesn't change structurally, Romania risks turning into a colony [of the West]," as reported by Ziuaconstanta.ro.

The event was attended by representatives of state institutions, personalities from scientific and academic life, members of employer and trade union organizations, representatives of the business environment, and members of student organizations.

iulian@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Inquam Photos/George Calin)