the end of history.

Six months ago, I wrote an article for Republica.ro in which I explained why George Simion and Calin Georgescu are the future of Romanian politics, and how the 2024 presidential election had forever changed the way political campaigns are run in my home country. 

Now, I’d like to go a step further: the Romania I knew and grew up in the 1990s is gone. It has been replaced by something darker, which was on show during the 2025 re-run of a tense presidential election which wrapped up the first round of voting yesterday. The showdown between populist George Simion and independent technocrat Nicușor Dan is an acute symptom of a deeper, structural division. The election was defined by a fracturing of Romania’s "protest vote," traditionally united in its disenchantment with established political elites but now fragmented into three irreconcilable blocs.

The opinion polls were much closer to the final result compared to the exit polls, indicating a strong "protest vote"

Firstly, there are the blue-collar migrants who left Romania in droves during the early 2000s to avoid the mass unemployment and economic collapse which took over their country in the late 1990s. Settling primarily in Spain, Italy, and Germany, this demographic initially served as a cohesive force of dissatisfaction with endemic corruption and lackluster economic growth back home. However, the COVID0-19 pandemic and ensuing inflation crisis across Europe inflicted disproportionate suffering on these communities, shattering their fragile economic stability. All of a sudden, they found themselves unable to pay the bills in their newfound homes while also struggling to maintain remittance flows to their families back home. So, many turned bitter, susceptible to Simion’s populist rhetoric, which amplified their frustrations and directed their resentment toward easy scapegoats: migrants, European Union institutions, and liberal elites.

On the other side of the protest divide, there are the white collar professionals who emigrated to Europe after Romania became a member of the European Union in pursuit of better opportunities. This group formed a different breed of disenchantment: their dissatisfaction, rooted in exasperation at Romania’s persistent economic mismanagement, sought solutions grounded in transparency, competence, and evidence-based policies. They found in Nicușor Dan and smaller parties such as USR, Reper or PLUS candidates who embodied their technocratic hopes and reformist ideals. Yet this group, numerically much smaller and politically more fragmented, failed to build bridges with their blue-collar counterparts, who now see the educated diaspora as part of a distant, privileged class detached from daily struggles.

Finally, there is Romania’s largest and most enduring bloc of protest voters: the silent majority that chooses abstention as a political statement. This group, frustrated by decades of broken promises, endemic corruption, and ineffectual governance, now displays an entrenched apathy verging on nihilism. For them, neither Simion’s reactionary populism nor Dan’s intellectual moderation offer meaningful answers. Their abstention (at times, they represent 60% of the total electorate) weakens the very democratic processes that could theoretically rescue Romania from its political malaise.

Crucially, these three protest blocs, once unified in their dissatisfaction, have drifted irretrievably apart. The divisive tactics of politicians like Simion or the elitist attitudes at the top of USR have exacerbated tensions, creating cleavages along class, economic, and cultural lines. The optimism of Romania's integration into Europe has been overshadowed by resentment, frustration, and an alarming sense of hopelessness.

Looking ahead, Romania faces the grim prospect of a deeply fractured political landscape. From where I’m standing, there’s no path towards meaningful reconciliation between these protest factions so the country now faces a decade of political volatility, economic stagnation, and social strife while its public institutions and services (especially education and healthcare) crumble, creating a vicious cycle that will be impossible to escape.

Romania’s democratic future appears increasingly uncertain, at a time when the region demands political stability and economic growth.