It was reported by the AFP agency quoted by the TASR agency.
Demonstrators, mostly young people, gathered in Bucharest’s Victory Square with European Union flags and banners reading: “The day we surrender will be the day we die” or “Better to die than to be a fascist”.
In interviews with journalists, the demonstrators expressed their wish for Romania to remain part of the West.
One protester told AFP that the result of the first round of elections came as a big shock to her “because no one expected history to repeat itself”, alluding to the violent civil unrest that gripped Romania in 1989 during the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. Only the 25-year-old respondent added that she wants to study and take advantage of international programs. She stated that “her suitcase is half packed at the moment”. If the election “doesn’t end well”, he will definitely emigrate.
Another protester – a 61-year-old man – expressed his belief in an interview with AFP that social networks played a key role in the victory of the far-right candidate in the first round of the presidential election.
In the meantime, the Romanian authorities have initiated an investigation, the aim of which is to find out what role the TikTok platform played in the first round of the presidential election. In connection with this, the deputy head of the Romanian telecommunications regulator, Pavel Popescu, said on Wednesday that the official process of temporarily shutting down the TikTok platform in the country will begin from Thursday.
As AFP pointed out, the result of the first round of the presidential elections was a shock for the 19-million-strong NATO member state – Romania has so far resisted nationalist challenges, making it different from neighboring Hungary and Slovakia.
In the second round of the presidential elections, extreme right-wing admirer of Russia Calin Georgescu, who surprisingly knocked out Prime Minister Marcelo Ciolaco in the first round, and centrist Elena Lasconi will face each other. The president of Romania will be decided on December 8.
