Romanians protest in The Hague as far-right candidate gets closer to winning election
Around 150 Romanian people who live in the Netherlands protested in The Hague on Monday evening to raise concerns about the future of their country and the widespread misinformation and disinformation in the presidential election currently happening. Romanian voters will have to choose between a far-right and center-right candidate on Sunday.
The first round of the Romanian presidential election was surprisingly won by the far-right independent candidate Calin Georgescu. The second round of the election will happen on Sunday between the biggest winners of the first round - Georgescu and the center-right candidate Elena Lasconi.
One of the event organizers, Mara Hopîrtean, told NL Times that Georgescu’s strong finish domestically was shocking, and an important reason for her to help rally demonstrators. The Dutch-speaking architecture student has been living in the Netherlands for 14 months as she tackles coursework at TU-Delft.
“This is important for me personally, because, frankly, the first round of results were scary. I remember my mom called me while the votes were being counted, and I started crying,” she said. "I realized our future was in danger."
She believes many people who leave Romania do so out of a sense of necessity, seeking out more opportunities for a better life abroad. They often have strong personal connections to their home countries, and keep open the possibility of moving back to return to their roots, and help the country develop socially and economically.
“I would like to think that I can contribute to a brighter future in Romania, but that is only possible if the country keeps developing, remains in the European Union, remains in NATO, and has a democratic future,” she said. If Georgescu emerged victorious, she fears the prospect of women and minorities losing their rights, and a loss of freedom for all residents in general. “It is scary.”
“All of us want to go back to Romania, at least eventually,” Julie Chirtes, another organizer of the protest, told the media. “But we want to go back to a country that is in Europe, that is democratic, and that we can live in freely regardless of who we are.”
“We are at risk of getting a new leader that is an extremely far-right fascist, taking us all the way back to before ‘89, and we’re here to fight for democracy and to encourage people to give an informed vote,” Chirtes said.
A total of 24,366 Romanians voted at one of 21 different polling places in Dutch cities, including Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Eindhoven, Groningen, Utrecht, Den Bosch, Maastricht, Breda and Enschede. The voting varied widely per municipality. The vote totals from ballots cast in the Netherlands were closer than Hopîrtean expected, but not nearly as far-right leaning as in Germany.
Lasconi won a plurality among Romanian voters in the Netherlands, with 10,158 votes cast, or roughly 41.7 percent. Georgescu came in second, with 9,052 votes, or 37.2 percent of ballots cast in person. None of the other 14 candidates even came close, with George-Nicolae Simion drawing 2,155 votes for third place, and Mircea-Dan Geoanǎ pulling 1,261 votes in fourth place.
“I was definitely expecting it to be a bit more to the left. The reason why I was eventually happy with it is because it could have been a lot worse. I was a bit relieved it was more balanced,” Hopîrtean said. She thinks it may be because Romanian immigrants in the Netherlands are younger on average than in Germany.
Lasconi pulled 1,607 votes in The Hague compared to Georgescu’s 573, and 2,562 more in Amsterdam, versus 1,087. She also doubled his total in Groningen, winning 952 votes.
However, Georgescu was victorious in Rotterdam, 1,317 to 1,085, and by a much wider margin in Breda, where he won 1,738 compared to Lasconi’s 630. He also took 962 votes from Den Bosch and 672 in Enschede, compared to 413 and 528 for Lasconi, respectively.
The second round of voting will happen on Sunday. “We hope that people in Romania and in the diaspora will vote for the pro-European candidate,” another protester said. “We are looking at Georgia and Moldova. It is very dangerous for us.”
The group will hold another protest at Zorgvliet in The Hague from 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday. The organizers expect several hundred people to participate.
